


CAPT-AI-N (America): The First Mecha

by DarkFairytale



Series: The Marvel Mecha Universe [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Android Steve, Androids, Brainwashing, Canonical Character Death, Dubious Consent, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Mecha, Mecha Steve, POV Bucky Barnes, Prostitution, Rape/Non-con Elements, Robot/Human Relationships, Robots, Torture, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, engineer bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-06-06 22:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15204803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkFairytale/pseuds/DarkFairytale
Summary: Before the Great Technology War, Bucky had trained and worked as an Engineer. He didn’t just know how to fix machines and cars. He knew AI, he knew Androids and modern tech. He had worked with them for years. Androids were built by humans to do exactly as told. They had no feelings, even if more and more of them were being given façade personalities. They never disobeyed orders because it just wasn’t in their programming.And that was why when Bucky Barnes met Steve Rogers for the very first time, he hadn’t even been able to tell.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So after years and years I have finally decided to write my first MCU and Stucky fic. And as it was our Cap's 100th birthday this week I thought it was the perfect time to get Part 1 posted.
> 
> This fic (and some of its terminology/plot points) was inspired by films/television series such as AI: Artificial Intelligence, the Alien franchise, Humans, I, Robot etc. etc.

Barnes, James B., _32557038,_ Engineer, US 107th Infantry, Human.

Several generations ago, when Bucky’s ancestors were fighting the First World War, the Second World War, heck, even the Third one, there had been no need for the specification of ‘Human’ in their identification papers, on their dog-tags. It was a new specification, unique to the Great Technology War, because before the Great Technology War, there hadn’t been Androids counted among the ranks of soldiers.

Before the Great Technology War, Bucky had trained and worked as an Engineer. He didn’t just know how to fix machines and cars. He knew AI, he knew Androids and modern tech. He had worked with them for years. Androids could look human enough now that specification was needed in IDs, even if they didn’t have any rights or the fact, of course, that they were considered more as glorified weapons than soldiers.

Bucky didn’t design or make new robots; he just fixed ones already in existence. While Bucky had never owned, nor wanted a humanised robot or Android of any kind, he had worked on enough of them to know what they were like. Androids were built by humans to do exactly as told. They had no feelings, even if more and more of them were being given façade personalities. They never disobeyed orders because it just wasn’t in their programming.

And that was why when Bucky Barnes met Steve Rogers for the very first time, he hadn’t even been able to tell.

“You’ve got to take better care of it, Jackson,” Bucky scolded around the handle of the screwdriver he had held in his teeth, his hands busy with rewiring an Android that had seen far better days.

They were in base camp on a rare relief from combat. Bucky had been installed in one of the workshops to fix up any battered tech, weapons, vehicles and Androids. His latest job had been brought to him by Sgt. Jackson. The Android was a male human design and had taken a severe beating. Not because of any war-related incident, Bucky suspected, but because Androids could be picked on and whaled on by angry and tense soldiers because they weren’t considered human.

“It’s just a dumb robot,” Jackson shrugged, “It missed a shot today that it should have made. We nearly lost Cooper because of it.”

“Its aim was probably off. Did you take it for the MOT it was due for before you went out?” Bucky raised a knowing and accusing eyebrow.

Jackson immediately turned defensive.

“You’ve got too much sympathy for these artificial freaks, Barnes,” he snapped. “You Engineers are all the same. Metal-lovers.”

Bucky pushed his sweat-damp hair from his forehead. He hadn’t enlisted into the war; he’d been conscripted because of the Engineer shortage. He had places he would much rather be. He shouldn’t have to be here, putting up with this shit.

“I just think that if you need to take your anger out on something, you should pick on something that at least has the free will to fight back. Somebody your own size. Somebody on the _opposing_ side of the war, maybe?”

“You calling me a coward now?” Jackson scowled, taking a threatening step forwards, his fingers curling into a fist.

Bucky sighed, sitting back on his heels, looking from where he was kneeling before the robot on the chair in front of him up at the man before him, sizing him up. He could easily take him. He just didn’t want to get caught up in a fist fight he didn’t start. He had had enough of those in his childhood. Bucky Barnes didn’t start fights, but he finished them. Finishing this fight would probably put a blemish on his military record that he didn’t want. He was just about to warn Jackson not to even bother starting something, when someone else beat him to it.

 “This guy bothering you?”

Bucky started, looking over Jackson’s shoulder to the man that had spoken. Bucky had never seen him before and he knew that with such certainty because he doubted he would ever be able to forget a face like that. Tall, blond and handsome was frowning at them, his own fists clenched as though he was just waiting to jump in and get started.

“Nah, pal,” Bucky waved his concern aside, “No problem here, right Jackson?”

Jackson was staring at the newcomer angrily.

“What’s it to you?” Jackson demanded. “This ain’t any of your business.”

The blond pulled a face that suggested that it was entirely his business. “You are threatening an Engineer that is clearly just doing his job and recommending that maybe you don’t break Androids and machinery entrusted to your care. You think that Colonel Phillips or Agent Carter would be pleased to hear the tech is being misused?”

Jackson sneered. “You gunna grass me up, kid? Cos I’m warning you now that that would be a bad idea.”

The blonde man looked mortally offended. “I’m not a grass.” His eyes narrowed. “But I don’t take too kindly to bullies.” His fists seemed to clench tighter and the muscles in his biceps bulged.

Jackson seemed to finally take notice, taking stock of the man’s size, his muscles, the fire in his expression. As entertaining as it was to watch, Bucky didn’t want them starting a brawl in the middle of his workspace. He had delicate tech to protect.

“Cool it guys,” Bucky warned, standing up and holding his hands out in an appeasing gesture. “I’m not calling you a coward, Jackson, what I’m calling you is an idiot. You don’t wanna get punished for purposefully breaking military-issued equipment. Take better care of it or you’ll have it taken off you. I’ll have it fixed by tomorrow morning, come back for it then.”

Jackson took one last look from Bucky to the blond and back again, before giving up.

“Sure thing, Barnes.”

The moment that Jackson had stalked away, Bucky shook his head and turned back to close up the open chest cavity of the robot, hiding the wirework and circuit boards under the synthetic rib cage and skin.

“I could have had him on the ropes for you, you know.”

Bucky snorted and turned back to eye the blond, who was still standing behind him, looking a little put out that he hadn’t been able to knock some sense into Jackson. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was watching Bucky expectantly. If Bucky Barnes was a finisher of fights, this guy seemed to be the kind to start them, good intentions or no.

“Not in my workshop you wouldn’t. I would have taken you both out before you could endanger my tech.”

The blond man shrugged. He smiled. “I don’t doubt that you would have, Sergeant.”

Bucky gave him a quick onceover. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, maybe the well-meaning intentions of the blond man, the smile on his face or the unimposing way he held himself that made Bucky instantly like the guy. There was something strange about him, though. He looked Bucky’s age, and was wearing the standard casual camouflage uniform, but it looked brand new, pristine and clean. He had to be new, to the regiment or the war in general, because there wasn’t a soldier he knew, no matter how hard they tried, that could ever be truly free of mud, grime and machine oil.

Speaking of which…Bucky wiped his oily hand clean on his grey mechanics jumpsuit and held it out.

“Sergeant James Barnes,” he introduced himself. “I don’t think we’ve met before.” It was meant as a hint. The other man seemed to know it too.

“Steve,” the man smiled, stepping forwards to clasp Bucky’s hand and shake it. His hand was cool to the touch. “Steve Rogers.”

“Uh-huh,” Bucky quirked an eyebrow, looking Rogers over once again. There wasn’t any rank insignia on his uniform. He was certainly unconventional. He also had distractingly blue eyes. So distracting that Bucky almost forgot to let go of Steve’s hand. “What’s your rank?”

The fact that Steve had to stop and consider the question immediately struck Bucky as odd.

“Captain,” Steve said slowly, deliberating, smiling a smile that almost looked like he had just told some sort of private joke. “Well,” he shrugged awkwardly, “Sort of.”

Bucky frowned. What the hell did he mean, _sort of_? Everyone had a rank and unless Steve was currently in the rank of Temporary Captain, there was no need for the consideration. There was a second where he began to worry that his first impressions were false and that Steve was an enemy spy that had infiltrated the camp, gathering Intel on the tech from the workshops. But before he could consider how to confront that question, he spotted Agent Carter stride into the workshop, clock them and start marching towards them. Bucky had only had about three conversations with Agent Carter, but he knew enough about her to know that at least if Steve was a spy, Agent Carter would sort that shit out in a heartbeat.

But Agent Carter seemed to know exactly who Steve was.

“Steve!” Agent Carter’s tone was almost reprimanding when she reached them. “I thought I told you not to wander off.”

“Sorry, Peggy,” Steve apologised and honest to god shuffled his feet. “I wanted to see the workshop, if I’m gunna be spending time here.”

Bucky blinked. He hadn’t even known what Agent Carter’s first name _was,_ let alone have the balls to call her it.  He expected Agent Carter to scold Steve again but instead she rolled her eyes.

“Of course you did. But I told you to wait for me, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Steve actually looked sheepish. “Sorry.”

Agent Carter threw Bucky an acknowledging nod. “Sergeant Barnes.”

“Agent Carter,” Bucky responded, trying to look like he wasn’t confused as all hell. Agent Carter seemed to speaking to Steve like he was some sort of child, unable to stay still or on his own without supervision.

“I hope you haven’t caused any trouble, Steve. I warned you that…”

“No, no I haven’t!” Steve looked imploringly at Bucky. “I’ve been with Sergeant Barnes the whole time.”

Agent Carter looked back at Bucky. Steve stared at him from over her head, begging at him with his eyes, presumably not wanting him to mention the brawl Steve had nearly launched into.

“He’s been helpful,” Bucky decided upon, because, to be fair, Steve had gotten Jackson off Bucky’s case, even if it had nearly ended up in a fist fight. Steve had _almost_ gotten into trouble, but that _had_ been avoided at the last moment.

Steve’s smile widened gratefully. Agent Carter did not look like she entirely believed Bucky. “I suppose Steve being here has at least saved me the job of finding you later Sergeant Barnes, Colonel Phillips has asked for your presence at the Tactical Room at 16:00.”

He had no idea what that would be for. “Yes, Ma’am.”

She nodded, before eyeing Steve again. “Come along, Steve.”

Steve obediently turned to follow her, before looking back at Bucky over his shoulder.

“Nice to meet you James!” Steve called as Agent Carter herded him out of the workshop, leaving Bucky staring after them, more than a little bewildered.

***

Bucky ensured to be early to the Tactical Room, but despite turning up at 15:45, was not the first to arrive. Despite not having officially met him, he recognised Sergeant Timothy ‘Dum-Dum’ Dugan immediately, because his moustache was a pretty memorable feature. The other man already in the room, however, Bucky had worked with on many occasions; Private Gabe Jones had assisted Bucky in the past with captured foreign Androids and their language settings. Gabe waved at Bucky when he entered and Bucky made a beeline for him, sitting down in the seat beside him with a nod of greeting at Dum-Dum Dugan.

“You got any idea what this is about?” he muttered to Gabe.

“Not a clue,” Gabe murmured back. “But it’s getting me out of weapons cleaning duties, so I ain’t complaining.”

Over the next fifteen minutes, three more men filtered in one by one. Bucky had not previously met any of them. The American introduced himself as Private Jim Morita, the Brit as Brigadier James Montgomery Falsworth and the Frenchman as Jacques Dernier, ‘explosives expert’. None of them seemed to know why they were being gathered by Colonel Phillips.

At 16:00 prompt, the man himself entered the room.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “You are probably wondering why you have all been gathered here. You have all been handpicked by your commanding officers as notable marksmen, tacticians, weapons experts, linguists and engineers. We are commencing the formation of five elite combat units that will be used for covert missions. The seven of you will form one of those units.”

Bucky glanced over the five men seated at the table – not including himself – and then over at Gabe, who, apparently on the same line of thought mouthed ‘ _seven?_ ’ at him.

“You will be given missions to complete as a unit and when not on mission will resume regular duties with your regiments. Sergeant Dugan,” Phillips said. “You will lead the unit.”

“It would be an honour, Colonel,” Dum-Dum nodded.

“It is indeed an honour, for all of you, gentlemen. You will be at the forefront of working with the latest and most advanced technology at our disposal. Our secret weapon. You have been assigned an advanced Android that will work with you for all of your missions. Sergeant Barnes, as the team’s engineering expert, you will assume the role of handler.” Phillips then turned his head to the door to call in, “Agent Carter!”

Agent Carter entered the room and Bucky frowned in confusion when he saw Steve follow her in.

“Gentlemen,” Agent Carter addressed them, “This is the US Army’s newest secret weapon.”

She gestured at Steve.

Bucky frown deepened. He glanced at the others and they all seemed to be staring at Steve with doubt, confusion and suspicion.

 “Colonel, Agent,” Dum-Dum said, “Are you telling us that that is an Android?”

“Yes, he is,” Steve answered, before Phillips or Carter could.

Everyone stared again. Bucky’s mouth had dropped open. He could scarcely believe it. He had held a full conversation with Steve, shaken his hand, looked into his eyes and had been absolutely none the wiser that Steve was not a living, breathing human. Bucky had worked as an Engineer for years and he had seen nothing like this, an Android that seemed to have its own mind. That looked and acted so _real_.

“An Android that speaks out of turn?” Dum-Dum added.

Phillips seemed chagrined. “He should know better. He’ll learn.” He shot Steve a withering look and Steve stepped back, falling into a perfect military at-ease stance, with an abruptness that for the first time suggested his being a machine.

“An Android that needs training?” Bucky could not help but ask incredulously.

Steve’s gaze flicked to him, his mouth quirking in a knowing smile as their eyes met. Bucky was too taken-aback to return the smile, a smile that should not have been directed at him in the first place as though they had their own secret, because Androids just didn’t _act like that_.

 “Yes he may need some training. He is the newest and most advanced model of android in the world; we are calling it the CAPT-AI-N,” Phillips explained, and suddenly Steve’s comment of his ‘Captain’ rank made sense and Bucky suddenly realised that Steve, an Android, had been telling a _joke._ “He is built specifically for stealth missions and disguise, but to get him to look as human and to act as human as he is, we had to wire him a little differently.”

“Colonel, may I speak freely about some reservations?” Dum-Dum asked.

“Go ahead, Sergeant.”

“You wish us to be a team for vital covert missions. That will require us to rely on each other at all times and work seamlessly as a unit. I apologise, but the use of Androids in the field, although effective, has also proved to be lacking in one area. Team work. I have seen it with my own eyes. An Android that has been given the orders to achieve an aim or target will be relentless until that is achieved, yes, but I have seen it achieved at a cost and at a loss. If an Android has something to achieve, that is its focus. Its team isn’t considered. If it is a choice between moving further to that goal for the sacrifice of a teammate, it will do it; because Androids don’t do _choice_. Androids don’t have the humanity needed for team work, Colonel. I have seen Androids abandon injured soldiers when a human could have saved them and still achieved the end goal. I wouldn’t trust an Android to have my back in a fight or on a stealth mission.”

“Also, Colonel,” Morita added, “You said he is built specifically for stealth and disguise? Well I’m sorry to break it to you, but that,” he waved in Steve’s direction, “Is not exactly subtle.”

Building an Adonis and expecting him to blend in. Bucky had to agree.

“The CAPT-AI-N is…” Phillips started, before Steve interrupted.

“If you don’t mind my saying, Colonel,” Steve said. Phillips stared at him, clearly still not used to an Android being able to speak out of turn, but eventually nodded, allowing him to continue.

Steve stepped forwards. “My name is Steve Rogers and I’ve been assigned to your unit. I know you have doubts about how I will be able to aid you going forwards and I assure you that I will do everything in my power to be a reliable addition that you can trust.”

“It has a name?” Dernier asked, surprised.

“I do. I am a stealth robot after all; an assumed human must have a human name,” Steve Rogers said, “And I am male, so can be referred to using male pronouns.”

“He’s a sassy Android,” Gabe whispered to Bucky.

“In regards to your reservations about his disguising abilities,” Colonel Phillips resumed control of the room again. “I doubt that that will be an issue.” He turned to Steve and seemed hesitant before finally calling Steve by his supposed ‘name’, “Rogers.” It was an order.

Steve’s hair changed from blond to black. The room stared. Steve’s body lost a couple of inches in height and kilos in muscle mass before their very eyes. The room gawped. Tattoos began to rise up on his skin. What was left was someone very, very different, the only things that had not changed were the face and those blue, so very human eyes.

“He also has enhanced strength and reflexes, he has noise inhibitors. He’s as close as you can possibly get to a super soldier. He’s on a trial period. And as our secret weapon, his identity as an Android should also be kept as secret as possible. The words spoken tonight in this room must stay with you, men. You will train as a unit as of tomorrow and the CAPT-AI-N…Rogers…will be with you when you do. You must treat him as a human in front of your fellow soldiers. If you don’t approve of his performance over the next month we will review and reconsider. Your orders will arrive in the morning.” Phillip’s tone brooked no argument. “That is all. Thank you gentlemen. Barnes, stay behind. You will need to know a few more specifics of the CAPT-AI-N model, if you are going to be his handler.”

Gabe clapped Bucky on the shoulder as he got up.

“Bad luck, mate.”

“What’s bad luck?” Bucky ribbed, “Having you as a teammate?”

Gabe smirked, clutching his chest in a wounded fashion. “Hurt worse than a bullet, that, Bucky. I meant your new buddy.” He nodded at Steve Rogers. “You having to play keeper.”

“Yeah,” Bucky sighed, not entirely meaning it. He could not deny that he was fascinated by the idea of Steve. “Unlucky.”

Gabe’s smile turned a little more sympathetic as he followed the rest of the men out of the room. Bucky stood and made his way towards Colonel Phillips, Agent Carter and Steve.

“He’s your responsibility now, Barnes,” Carter said. “Look after him.”

Bucky regarded Steve, who was still black haired and covered in tattoos and standing at half-a-head shorter than Bucky.

“Change back to neutral,” he ordered softly, watching in awe as he witnessed the change close up, the skin moving, the muscle building, the tattoos fading, the black washing back to blond and Steve growing taller until his eyes were at a level with Bucky’s again. Bucky would have called such a transformation impossible if he were not seeing it with his own eyes. “I just…” Bucky made a movement to touch Steve’s skin but aborted fast. “I have never seen anything like this.” He looked at Phillips. “Who is the inventor?”

“Dr Abraham Erskine and Howard Stark.”

“A Stark product?” Bucky asked, surprised, looking back at Steve.

“More an Erskine product,” Steve corrected, glancing at Phillips and Carter and away again. “Howard lent a hand.”

Bucky frowned again at the use of first names, as though Steve knew them on a personal basis, as though they were his friends.

“You will need to show him the ropes and get him a bunk, Barnes.”

Bucky frowned at Phillips. “Don’t you mean a charger port?”

“A bunk,” Phillips said again. “He’s our secret weapon, which means he has to be believed to be human for as long as possible.”

“Some of the more experienced Engineers might notice. And if he gets ‘wounded’ in battle, everyone will notice.”

“For as long as you can, Sergeant. We want his identity to remain a secret for as long as possible. It gives us an advantage. I will make sure that your new unit knows the score.”

Bucky knew that Steve would need charging, somehow. He would likely have to incorporate it into a bunk to keep it discreet. “Yes Sir.”

“Good. Then we will leave the pair of you to get acquainted. After you, Agent Carter.”

Agent Carter reached out and squeezed Steve’s arm. “I will see you soon, Steve.”

“Bye Peggy.” Steve’s smile looked different – sad – and Bucky had never seen an Android with such a range of facial emotion.

And then Agent Carter was gone and they were left alone.

“Had you fooled, huh?” Steve asked him, quietly.

“Yeah,” Bucky said, a little lost for words, tracing Steve’s face with his eyes, trying to imagine the metal and wires under the façade that was so convincingly human.

“It was nice while it lasted.”

Bucky blinked. “What was?”

“You thinking I was human, treating me like one,” Steve shifted, eyeing him. He was so human in his movements and actions, not aborted, calculated or forced like most Androids. “Now you see me as an Engineer would see me. I like it better when people think I’m human.”

“Sorry,” Bucky said. He couldn’t remember the last time he had apologised to an Android, either. He wasn’t sure he should, either. He had to remember that no matter how human Steve was, he was still a machine that would need maintenance. He should treat him like he treated any other Android. Even if he had the strange urge to have Steve like him, which was stupid, because Androids couldn’t _like_ people. “I am going to ask you technical questions about yourself at some point, though, you know.”

“I know,” Steve said, a small frown forming on his face. “Just not tonight, please?”

“Fine,” Bucky dragged his hand back through his hair. He eyed Steve. “I have to ask one before I find you a bunk, though. How often do you need charging and when were you last charged?”

“I was charged twenty-four hours ago. I can last about ninety-six hours. So four days without some form of charge.”

Bucky nodded. “Good. Ok. We’ll find you a bunk for now, I’ll sort you some kind of discreet port tomorrow.”

Steve’s mouth drew up from its frown into a smile that looked almost shy. “Thank you, James.”

Still disconcerted by the fact that he was pleased to have made an Android smile, Bucky shrugged.

“Sure.”

After a trade of cash and his second-favourite gun to his usual bunk-neighbour, he managed to sort Steve the bunk next to Bucky’s that stood at one the end of the barracks, so that Bucky was sleeping between Steve and the rest of the men. He tried to ignore the grateful look on Steve’s face, because he knew it couldn’t be real emotion, even if the sight of it made him feel a little bit warmer.

***

“They don’t trust me.”

Bucky looked up to regard Steve. They had spent the day training as a unit for the first time with Gabe, Dum-Dum, Morita, Dernier and Falsworth, the latter of which they had already taken to jokingly calling ‘Union Jack’ instead to avoid the mouthful the Brit’s name presented. For the humans of the group, the camaraderie had been there almost instantly and each could recognise the talents and benefits of their team mates. It had, in all, been a successful first day of training.

Their Android, however, would take some getting used to. Steve had been quiet most of the day, doing as he was told for the most part, but there were moments where he would release a hilariously sassy and snarky comment that would catch them all off guard and one occasion where he had questioned Dum-Dum’s decision on a task. None of them had ever worked with an Android that could answer-back, ask questions or be anything but obedient, unless, of course, caused by some form of major malfunction.

When Bucky didn’t answer quickly enough, Steve added, “You don’t trust me.” He looked disheartened, disappointed.

“No. Not yet,” Bucky replied honestly. “You have to understand it from our perspective. It’s difficult to trust something without compassion, Steve. What Dum-Dum said last night, about what he had seen out in the field? Well I’ve seen it too. I’ve seen injured men left behind by Androids that had calculated that the mission could be completed more efficiently by abandoning the men with them.”

“Then someone should have programmed the protection of the Android’s comrades over the mission. That isn’t the Android’s fault, that’s the fault of the superior human officers. Like the Medical AI-ds, their first mission is soldier health.”

“Even that’s unpredictable at times because that can hinder missions too; if an Android is too busy fussing to consider its surroundings it can be dangerous. Either way, whether it’s the programming from superior officers or not, it makes Androids hard to trust in the field. Every time I go out there with an Android I have to be prepared to predict that the Androids with us will act inhuman in their choices, because they aren’t programmed to have a choice.”

“I’m programmed to make choices,” Steve said. “I’m not like them. I’m different. I have compassion.”

“I know that you might be programmed to think you do, Steve…”

“You don’t understand…”

“But,” Bucky carried on over Steve’s protest, and Steve pursed his lips together, eyes narrowing. “We won’t know for sure until we’re all tried and tested in the field.” Bucky frowned, finally processing what Steve had been about to say. “What is it that I don’t understand?”

Steve ducked his head and if he had been able to flush, Bucky gathers that he would have done then. “Nothing.”

“I could order you to tell me, you know.”

“No you couldn’t,” Steve told him, matter of fact, “I can defy orders.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Of course you can, because apparently the army considers its best Android to be one that can’t follow orders.”

Steve opened his mouth to say something, before closing it abruptly, aborted, and the hollow clack of his artificial teeth made him sound and look more like a robot should.

“I have so many questions about you, Steve.”

“That won’t answer all of them,” Steve commented, nodding at the file on the desk beside them.

Colonel Phillips had granted Bucky an hour alone with Steve in the privacy of Phillips’ office to have a full maintenance check, so that Bucky could learn how Steve was put together, how he worked and how he would fix him if he ever needed repairing. They were sitting on chairs, facing each other, on one side of Phillips’ desk.

The CAPT-AI-N (America) file had been left for Bucky’s eyes only, on the top of the desk.

Bucky raised his eyebrow.

“You mean to tell me that that file - compiled by Erskine and Stark themselves - won’t answer all my questions?”

“It’s just an instruction manual,” Steve sniffed, as though he hated the very idea of it.

“And what will give me all my answers? You?”

Steve leant forward in his seat, resting his forearms on his knees, expression conspiratorial. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m a special Android,” Steve said, smug, “Because I can keep secrets.”

Bucky stared at him. “I don’t understand you at all.”

Steve looked thrilled. “Thanks.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

Steve cocked his head, grinned a wide, perfect grin.

Bucky rolled his eyes again, with more force. “At least the file will help me understand how you’re wired, even if it doesn’t give me the why.” He picked it up and opened it onto the first page. “You know, keeping secrets isn’t going to help me trust you,” he added.

“I know, but there are some that I have to keep.” He sounded apologetic. “For now, at least.”

“Why? Because _you_ don’t trust _me_?” Bucky scoffed, before looking up at Steve’s face and realising that that was exactly what he meant. Androids didn’t not trust people. That wasn’t how it worked. But apparently, as with every time Bucky was flawed by Steve, it was how _Steve_ worked. Bucky decided not to push it if he wanted to get Steve to co-operate in showing him his inner workings. He turned the next page, eyes scanning the instructions and diagrams. “It looks like the kind of base I’m used to at least,” he murmured to himself. “Now let’s see. How do I…” Bucky waved his arm distractedly, searching absently for a phrase, “Get in you?”

“You could buy me a drink first and see how that goes.”

Bucky barked a laugh before he could even properly process what Steve had just said, before looking back up at Steve in surprise.

“That question was rhetorical.”

Steve grinned again and ducked his head in the way that he apparently did that indicated that if he could blush, his cheeks would be glowing pinker and his ears turning redder.

“And not an innuendo?” Steve added.

“No.”

“My bad.”

Bucky laughed again. “Never thought I’d see a day when Androids would be making jokes about sex.”

Steve’s eyebrow arched perfectly. Maybe Bucky should have known he was an Android from the first, everything about Steve’s face was too damned perfect. “But you’ve thought about it?”

Bucky laughed again. “Keep going and I might just slip with my screwdriver.”

“Another innuendo?”

Bucky held his head in his hand. “Jesus, I’m walking into these, aren’t I?”

“And here I’d heard from the ribbing of the others today that you were some kind of smooth talker.”

Bucky cocked his eyebrow, smirked. Two could play at this game. “My flirting prowess would turn anybody on. Don’t even have to be an Android.”

“Ooh, Android innuendo. Nice.” Steve snorted.

“Since when do Army-issued robots know jokes about sex?”

“Since me.” Steve lifted his chin defiantly. “And not that I’m going to show you without at least two dates beforehand; but I’m also anatomically correct and function just like a human. Other than, you know, not needing to eat or use the bathroom. But if an Android can have sex, they should be able to talk and joke about it too. Only seems fair.”

“You’re built to have sex,” Bucky clarified, taken aback again, before flipping through the pages of the file in front of him for confirmation. Androids weren’t designed for sex. Not unless they were modified serving bots or Prostitute Androids, which were becoming increasingly common as more and more Androids were made and it became easier to afford to have them made. People didn’t have to work to woo a partner when they could buy one that didn’t have a heart to break or feelings to hurt and whose only job was to give pleasure. Why would Steve, an Army-issued weapon, be given that feature? The only reason Bucky could think of was that, in order to make Steve look as human as possible, he had to function as human as possible.

“Yes,” Steve said. And apparently had decided that was the end of that conversation.

Before Bucky could try and pry further, Steve distracted him by finally taking pity on him and showing him how to get to the electronics inside him.

“You open me up to get to the electronics via a code,” he said, the ‘open me up’ part sounding even more like an innuendo now that Bucky knew that Steve could actually have _sex._ He turned his head to show Bucky the soft space behind his ear. “Press just here,” Steve pointed. Before Bucky’s eyes, the hair on the sides of Steve’s head retracted into his skull until he had a short-back-and-sides hairstyle.   “Then the code comes up here,” he lifted his finger to one of the shaved sides of his head. “It’s meant to be discreet.” He shrugged. “Then this opens,” he gestured at his chest.

Ok, that, at least, was something Bucky was used to with Androids.

“Ok, great. You’ll need to take your shirt off,” Bucky said.

Steve’s eyebrow quirked again.

“Don’t you start again,” Bucky warned.

Steve smiled sheepishly and pulled his shirt over his head. And god, this was definitely a body that was designed, crafted, made, because no-one was this perfect. No-one. Ridges of perfect synthetic muscles over strong mechanical components, Steve truly was unique of his kind. There was a star marked into the skin between Steve’s pectorals, like a birthmark on a human. It was partially hidden by the dog-tags that rested against his skin, usually hidden away in his uniform, that stated his true status:

  
Rogers, Steven G., CAPT-AI-N (America) model, US 107th Infantry, Android.

 

Bucky reached out, eyebrow raised in question, and Steve ducked his head so that Bucky could take his dog-tag chain over his head. Bucky then lifted his hand, trying not to notice how intimate this particular opening mechanism was, to press softly into the space behind Steve’s ear, easily feeling the raised spot behind it, that he pressed gently, eyes caught by Steve’s so very blue ones. From this close, he could finally begin to recognise the signs through the iris’ that did not quite respond to light the way that a human’s would. The code appeared in a strange blue glow on the side of Steve’s head and all Bucky had to do was gently tap in the code from the instruction manual and Steve’s chest opened.

“Jesus,” Steve averted his eyes, not looking down at his own chest. “That still freaks me out.”

Bucky frowned at him, noticed the uncomfortable look on his face.

“Sometimes you say things that an Android should not say.”

“I’m special,” Steve said, through gritted teeth. “I told ya.”

“This doesn’t hurt you, does it?” Bucky frowned, “Do you have pain receivers?”

“I turned them off.”

“Ok,” Bucky said. “We can shut you down for a minute while I look if you prefer…”

“No!” Steve said immediately, near shouted it. “No. No this is ok. I’m alright.”

Bucky nodded slowly, mind whirring, before uttering words he had never had to speak to an Android before. “I’m not going to hurt you, ok? I’m going to be real careful.”

Steve’s gaze cut to him, he gave a quick nod, before his eyes skittered away again, decidedly not looking at his own open chest.

Bucky carefully opened the chest panel, which looked so real that it was almost a little sickening to pull it away from the rest of Steve. But inside was what he knew; where organs and bones would be on a human, there were wires and panels and tech. This, Bucky knew too well. He investigated unfamiliar sections, checking the file, muttering ‘oh, so that must be how that works’ to himself every so often. Otherwise the room was silent. Steve had gone uncharacteristically still and silent; very Android all of a sudden.

Finally Bucky had had his fill of the new technology, having a much better understanding of how the re-sizing, skin transformations and eye and hair colour changes worked.

“There you go,” Bucky said, pushing Steve’s chest closed again. Steve reached up to press behind his own ear before his hair filled out again to cover the code panel on the side of his head.

Steve didn’t meet his eyes.

“Steve, I know that there’s a lot I still don’t understand. I don’t understand how you’re obviously sentient. I don’t understand why you seem to be conflicted as to what you are. But I do know that you are amazing and unique.  I’ve never seen anything – any _one_ – quite like you before.”

Steve gave him a small smile. “Thanks James.”

“Hey,” Bucky, clapped him on the shoulder, still feeling an unfamiliar urge to reassure the Android, cheer him up. “You may as well call me Bucky. Most of my friends do.”

Steve didn’t hide how thrilled he looked. “I was going to ask your permission to call you it but…”

“Consider permission granted. We are going to be working closely together.” Bucky gestured to where he had just had his hand buried in Steve’s artificial chest. “May as well get to know and trust each other a little more, right?”

Steve nodded. “Right,” his smiled broadened into that perfect, clean cut, crafted smile. “Thanks Bucky.”

***

The unit of seven trained together for another three weeks before their first mission. Steve turned out to be an asset, and had returned for Dernier when the Frenchman had been grazed by a bullet. He had fitted in and proved himself enough that by the end of the month and Phillips’ review of Steve’s performance, the squad asked to keep him in the unit.

It had been a strange month for Bucky. He had been kept incredibly busy by busted weapons and robots and androids. He had to make regular checks of the power unit he had managed to install to the frame and through the mattress and pillow to fit to the back of Steve’s neck while he ‘slept’. He had training with the squad. And he spent a lot of time with Steve.

In that month he had not learned much about why Steve was the way he was, but he did know what Steve was like. He had had to pull Steve out of three near-fights (granted, all of them Steve had been justified for getting involved in) and the Android clearly had his own mind. Steve’s identity as an Android was still a secret. All of their fellow soldiers assumed Steve to be human from the way that he looked and acted. If any of the Androids in the regiment knew, they didn’t mention it. Maybe they had all been briefed. Bucky didn’t know. If they had been told not to tell anybody, they would follow their orders. Steve, however, Steve did not always follow orders.

Bucky had been surprised to find, after several weeks dealing with Steve, that he enjoyed Steve’s company and liked spending time with him. He liked Steve. A lot. Bucky considered Steve his friend, even if Steve still needed testing to make sure he could be one hundred percent trusted in the field. Sometimes he almost forgot Steve wasn’t human. Almost, but then they would have a session to study Steve’s technology and he would be abruptly reminded. Steve liked to ask questions about Bucky’s pre-war life and Bucky had told him about his family – his parents and his sister – and his hobbies and his likes and dislikes. Of course, Bucky could not ask those questions back, Androids did not have family or hobbies, but there was something about Steve that made him feel like he should be asking more. Steve never shared anything, though; he just liked asking his questions and Bucky would humour him. Bucky often found himself making time for Steve. Maybe a little too much time.

At the end of the month, Bucky walked into his workshop at base camp to find Howard Stark standing at his workstation.

Speechless and stunned to find one of his heroes standing in front of him, Bucky had to force himself to eventually say, “Mr Stark?”

“Sergeant Barnes,” Howard Stark returned, holding out his hand. “Please, call me Howard.”

“Bucky,” Bucky introduced himself, reaching out to shake Howard’s hand.

Howard’s gaze swept over the designs and diagrams on Bucky’s workstation.

“You are the engineer that has been placed in charge of my CAPT-AI-N (America).”

“Yes.”

Howard looked back at him with a knowing smirk, eyes narrowing with it and crinkling at the corners. The mischievousness of a world class genius; because he and Howard Stark shared the secret of what Steve was, what he could do, and he never thought he would ever find himself sharing a secret with famous futurist genius Howard Stark.

“How is Steve doing?” Howard asked casually, like he was asking after a friend. It was just the same as the way Agent Carter treated Steve, like they had known each other for years.

“He’s incredible,” Bucky blurted, before stalling and expanding, “I have never met anyone…thing…” he corrected at Howard’s raised eyebrow, “Like him before.” Bucky knew that this was his opportunity to ask. “I have never seen an Android so sentient. And even now I don’t know how you and Dr Erskine achieved that. Steve knows, but he says it is a secret he will only divulge when he trusts me enough. Though it would help me to know who else is aware of Steve’s ‘secret’?”

“The only people in the world who know everything about Steve are Steve, me and Peggy Carter,” Howard said. “Dr Erskine died several months ago.”

Bucky’s mouth dropped open. He had had no idea. He imagined Steve’s face falling, the hurt in his eyes and the idea of the Android’s distress, an anomaly in itself, hurt him more than he could have imagined.

“Does Steve know?”

“Yes, he does,” Howard reassured. “Dr Erskine died the day that Steve was ‘woken up’, so to speak. Project Rebirth was a top secret operation, but somehow, god only knows how, we had a spy in our ranks. He killed Dr Erskine right there in the lab. The spy was dealt with. Well, Steve dealt with him. Our super soldier stealth robot got his first taste of action.”

Bucky nodded, trying to take it all in, figure out things about Steve with all of this new information.

“They wanted all the designs for Steve, because Steve is truly unique,” Howard continued. “I do not even consider him an Android because that is not what he is. I have classified him in an entirely different league. I consider Steve - the CAPT-AI-N (America) model – to be ‘Mecha’; a term I have coined for this new, advanced humanoid that can do everything an Android can possibly do, but also be capable of thoughts and emotions.”

“Mecha,” Bucky repeated, testing out the word; a whole new classification of Android, superior to an Android in so many ways and yet so human in so many others.

“You are at the forefront of testing and maintaining ground breaking technology, Bucky Barnes,” Howard grinned. “How does that feel?”

“It feels good,” Bucky said, not sure how to feel about Steve being described as ‘ground breaking technology’.  It was getting harder to consider Steve as just technology. “It feels great.”

“I brought something for Steve, but I don’t want to be the one to give it to him because the noble bastard would politely turn it down.” Howard said, holding out a wrapped circular package to Bucky. “I brought the US Army’s secret weapon of defence his own weapon of defence. Tell him he can thank me later.” He tapped it, watching Bucky. “It’s Vibranium, Bucky, Wakanda’s best, a rare resource. Don’t let it fall into the wrong hands. It or Steve.”

“I promise I will do everything in my power.”

Howard clapped him on the back, “Of course you will. I like you, Barnes,” Howard declared. “There is no need to keep this gift of mine secret though, I purposefully made it pretty garish,” he laughed, “Steve will get the reasons why it looks the way it does. Also you can tell him that if anyone asks him where it’s from, he can tell them straight. It was a gift from his old pal Stark.” He reached out and shook Bucky’s hand again. “It has been good to meet you, Bucky. I am sure we will meet again. For now I have to go and let Peggy and Chester know that I’m here. I sort of didn’t announce my arrival. Soon after I imagine I will be making a hasty retreat.” He winked. “See you.” And then he was gone.

Bucky took the package to breakfast the next day and set it down on the table in front of Steve, who had a plate in front of him (Steve would pretend to eat, while subtly passing off his portions to his squad, who had no complaints in that regard). Gabe, Morita, Dernier and Dum-Dum, who were sharing the table and picking bits off Steve’s plate, fell quiet, looking at it.

“A present,” Bucky told Steve, “From Howard Stark.”

Steve looked like it was Christmas Day, the way that he ripped into the package.

It turned out to be a shield. A red and white and blue shield with a big white star - that matched the shape of the one marked on Steve’s chest - slap bang in the centre of it.

“Jesus,” Bucky laughed. “He said it was garish.”

“Very patriotic,” Gabe inputted.

Gabe reached over and snagged the note on top of the shield that read ‘ _For CAPT-AI-N (America) – Something patriotic to match the moniker. H.S.’_

“CAPT-AI-N (America)?” Gabe read aloud, amused. “That’s your full title?”

“Captain America?” Falsworth arrived at the table with his breakfast tray in his hands. “Who’s Captain America? If this is another of your bloody ‘Union Jack’ things…”

“Why aren’t you a fan of the patriotic names, Union Jack?” Morita sniggered.

“You bloody know why…”

“This,” Dum-Dum interrupted, sweeping his hand towards Steve, “Is apparently ‘Captain America’.”

“Why did they call you CAPT-AI-N (America)?” Dernier asked. “Like why the ‘America’ bit? Because the last I heard, you were all…unique. No other country’s got one.”

Steve did his telling if-he-could-blush duck of his head and Bucky could tell from Steve’s expression that the if-he-could-blush blush would be in full force.

“Stark was having a laugh over the patriotic thing,” Steve grumbled. “He named me after an antique patriotic robot trialled years ago - the original ‘Captain America’ and the USO Girls that they made?”

“Oh yeah, I remember them,” Morita said. “They were performance bots for the Propaganda thing?”

“That’s them,” Steve rolled his eyes. “So I guess if I end up failing at this at least I can always give Captain America his comeback on stage. Fake-punch some bad guys in the face.”

Morita and Gabe laughed loudly.

“Could get you a nice outfit and everything,” Bucky smirked. “Stars and stripes.”

“Oh yeah, what was that song they used to sing?” Gabe gasped through his laughter, “Star Spangled Man?”

“I fucking hate Howard Stark,” Steve dropped his head into his hands as the squad began to sing _Star Spangled Man_.

They ended up laughing so raucously and uproariously that they had the whole breakfast hall turning to stare at them.

Their reputation for loud laughter, boisterous antics and whirlwind-like success on missions eventually found them being nicknamed the ‘Howling Commandos’. And Steve? Well Steve ended up with the nickname ‘Captain America’, though mostly, they just shortened it to ‘Cap’. Bucky heard Steve half-heartedly complain about Stark purposefully humiliating him, only half-heartedly because it turned out that Steve didn’t mind being called ‘Cap’ so much, nor finally being recognised as one of the ‘gang’. And he really did love that shield.

***

Two weeks later they were in the depths of enemy territory. Steve had gone in first, undercover as one of the enemy, slimmed down, eyes a light brown, hair chestnut brown, in one of their uniforms, accent and language perfected thanks to his artificial brain that seemed to be able to download that kind of thing. He had gotten them all in and they had gotten the intel needed and then the fight out had started. Bucky was up high, providing covering fire as the team’s best sniper. Steve was in the thick of it, using his shield - that Morita had brought in for him and thrown to him – which such ease it was like it was another limb.

It didn’t look like it was going to take long. They had the upper hand.

Until they didn’t.

“Grenade!” Dernier yelled as something arched through the air above them from a hidden position even Bucky couldn’t see, and landed dead centre of Morita, Dum-Dum and Gabe.

Even as they turned to run, Bucky knew that they wouldn’t have time to get clear enough to avoid getting hit by at least something, and up in his sniper’s position, there was nothing Bucky could do. There was also nothing he could do but helplessly watch as Steve suddenly ran towards the fucking thing, slamming his shield down over it and then curling himself over the top of the shield.

The explosion lifted Steve and the shield off the ground, throwing them into the nearest building.

Bucky felt sick, holstering his sniper rifle and running towards the fight, pistols in his hands. The others were making quick work of the remaining enemy soldiers, the distraction of Steve’s actions had given them more time to get back on top of the fight.

Bucky shot two enemy soldiers on his way to Steve, skidding to his knees beside him and pulling him up from where Steve was slumped at the bottom of the building.

“Steve?” Bucky asked urgently, hands searching. He gasped when his hand met metal and wires where the artificial skin had been ripped away from Steve’s left shoulder. “Steve?”

“B…Buc…Buck-y?” His name came haltingly, jerkily from Steve, like his voice-box had taken a shock. It was robotic and strange and so not-Steve that Bucky’s chest constricted.

“You self-sacrificing idiot,” he hissed, without much heat, because he had just saved lives doing what he did. “You fucking stupid punk.”

“Sor-ry,” Steve said.

“It’s ok, you’re ok. I’m gunna fix you up. I’m gunna fix you up real good.”

“Bucky.” The sound of his name made Bucky turn around, Steve’s head cradled to his chest. Dum-Dum was standing next to them, the others not far behind.

“We’re done, we’re moving out. Morita has Cap’s shield. We need to get him out of here.”

Bucky turned back to Steve. “Steve, can you walk?”

“I. Do. Not. Know,” Steve replied jerkily. He shut his eyes, face scrunching. His brown hair started to fade back to blonde but seemed to fail half way.

“No, don’t try to go back to normal size until we figure out the damage. It’s ok, we’ll get you up. Do you need me to turn your pain receivers off?”

Steve nodded, his eyes still squeezed shut. “It. Hurts.”

“Ok,” Bucky said, touching the spot behind Steve’s ear. The code panel lit up under Steve’s hair, but Bucky knew it well enough now, he tapped the code for the pain receivers and shut them down. As soon as he did, Steve sagged against him. “Come on Stevie,” he said.

Gabe darted forwards to take Steve’s other arm so that he and Bucky could haul Steve to his feet, placing Steve’s arms over their shoulders. Bucky caught another glance at exposed wires and plates. There wasn’t going to be much they could do to hide that back at base camp, but they would have to try.

They got Steve back to their truck and Bucky made sure to sit by Steve, watching him carefully as they made their journey back.

“That was about the bravest thing I’ve ever seen,” Falsworth said.

“And the stupidest,” Morita added.

“You did good, Cap,” Gabe told him. “I’m sorry that we ever doubted that you wouldn’t have our backs.”

Steve smiled at them, but it was a tired, weak smile, still awkward and jittery like his wires had gotten jumbled somewhere.

“You saved our lives, Cap,” Dum-Dum said. “We owe you a great debt. And Gabe is right. We also owe you an apology for ever doubting your loyalties.”

“Yes. Well,” Steve said, robot-voice still achingly unfamiliar, “Just. So. You. Know. I’m. Not. Go-ing. To. Do. That. A-gain. An-y. Time. Soon.”

The laughter from the squad was genuine, but also a little hysterically concerned.

“Let’s hope you never will have to,” Bucky said. “But wait until we get you back to rights before thinking about it, yeah?”

Steve nodded. “Yes.”

They got him back to base camp, but there was little they could do to hide the state he was in. His shoulder was exposed and even after Bucky had covered it with his own jacket, Steve’s hair was still half brown, half blonde. His eyes still a different colour, his body still noticeably slimmer. Bucky could feel people watching, almost could hear the whispers start. He ignored them and got Steve to his workstation at the workshop.

“Get me screens, I don’t want anyone but you lot and Phillips and Carter in here,” Bucky ordered.

Gabe and Dernier rushed off to get privacy screens and set them up around his workstation.

Bucky and Morita lowered Steve into the desk chair Bucky kept at his desk and Bucky sent them all away so that he could concentrate without people hovering.

“Ok, Steve, I’m sorry about this,” Bucky said quietly, “But I’m going to have to shut you down while I figure out how to fix this. If I cross wires and you start to bulk up again you could damage your shoulder or internals more.”

“No,” Steve begged, darker eyes wide and panicked. “No. I. Don’t. Want. To. It. Feels. Like. Dy-ing. I. Don’t. Want. To. Die. A-gain.”

Bucky hushed him gently. “You aren’t dying Steve. I’m just going to turn you off, just for a little while until I can fix you. I’ll get you switched back on as soon as I can. I promise. I promise.”

“You. Swear?”

“I swear it, Stevie. Ok? I swear it. You and me? We’re in it for the long haul. ‘Till the end of the line.”

“End. Of. The. Line,” Steve repeated, reaching out abortedly with his good arm and Bucky immediately took his hand.

“Yeah, pal,” Bucky said. He grabbed Steve’s file from its hidden drawer in his desk, finding the correct page and code, before pressing behind Steve’s ear and trying not to let his heart break from watching the fear in Steve’s eyes as he let him bring up the control panel and tap in the code to shut Steve down until he could fix him. “I’m with you ‘till the end of the line.”

***

It took hours and hours of work and frantic phone calls to Howard Stark before Bucky felt confident enough to switch Steve onto standby, let alone switch him back on entirely. Standby allowed Steve to charge back up and the artificial skin that was replacing what was lost on his shoulder would slowly knit to the skin around it as he charged up. By the time Bucky thought it was safe to switch Steve back on it had been well over twenty-four sleepless hours and the whispers had spread.

Apparently Colonel Phillips had had to inform everyone about Steve’s real identity. It had had to happen eventually, Bucky just knew that Phillips had wanted it to remain secret for as long as possible. Longer than it had, probably. But Steve had saved the lives of at least three men of the regiment and that had to count for something.

Bucky didn’t attend Phillips’ speech. He was too busy fixing Steve.

“Choosing you to be his handler was the best decision we could have made,” Peggy Carter said to him.

He whirled around. He hadn’t even heard her slip into his screened-off workstation.

“I just hope I’ve done enough,” Bucky said, rubbing his hand through his hair tiredly, checking Steve’s shoulder. “We should be able to switch him on fully in a couple of hours. Do you want to be here when I do?”

“Yes please, Sergeant,” Agent Carter said.

“You care about him,” Bucky said. It was not a question.

“So do you,” Agent Carter said, and that was also a statement.

“I do,” Bucky admitted. “Very much.”

“He’s special, isn’t he?”

“He is. I don’t quite know how,” he said, “I just know that he is.” He glanced at her. “It used to bother me that I didn’t know what it was that Erskine and Stark did to make him so different. So sentient. But I’ve come to realise that that doesn’t matter. I don’t care what makes him special, I just know that he is. And I care about who he is. Not what he is.”

“Maybe that was what he was waiting for, by not telling you.”

Bucky looked at Steve, at his closed eyes, and at the stillness of him as he rebooted on standby.

“Maybe that’s what he wanted,” Agent Carter added, “Steve is Erskine and Stark’s greatest achievement. But you, you are Steve’s greatest friend. It makes a difference.”

It did make a difference, Bucky knew, and if they ever were to find out that he may have fallen for Steve stupidly, irrevocably, impossibly? Well, that would probably make a difference too. It was why he could never act on it.

When he turned Steve back on, Agent Carter was there as she had vowed to be. But Bucky almost forgot about her as soon as Steve’s eyes flew open and his gaze fixed on Bucky, his pupils jerkily transitioning back to normal.

“You fixed me?” Steve asked, and his voice came out sounding right and Bucky breathed a sigh of relief.

Bucky nodded. “I got you switched back on as soon as I possibly could.”

Steve’s lips formed into a small smile. “Because you promised.”

“Yeah, Stevie,” Bucky said, reaching out to squeeze Steve’s wrist, ignoring Agent Carter and her eyebrow arching at him calling Steve ‘Stevie’, “Because I promised.”

Steve used Bucky’s grip to pull him forward into a desperate embrace. “I thought I was dying again,” Steve whispered into Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky wasn’t sure if he was supposed to have heard it. But he did.

How the hell did an Android die?

“Not on my watch, buddy,” Bucky said instead, “Not as long as I’m around.”

***

By the time Steve was deemed fit to return to the field, everybody knew about the no-longer-secret weapon, the CAPT-AI-N (America). Some looked at Steve with wariness, ignorant fear. Some looked at him like he was a fascinating exhibit, an object to be admired rather than a person to know. Some looked with disgust. Some wanted him out of the army because he was too close to mimicking life to be distinguishable. Some wanted to test him to his limits. Bucky resented them all, all of them who treated Steve differently since finding out the truth. He quickly came to understand why Steve had been so unhappy the first time Bucky had discovered he was an Android; why Steve much preferred people to think of and treat him as human.

Steve was special. Half of them couldn’t see it because they didn’t deem it a _good_ special. The other half thought he was special for what he could do for them, not for who he was. Nobody knew who he was but the Howling Commandos, and of all of them, none of them knew Steve as well as Bucky did.

Steve had been taken into meetings with high ranking officers from other regiments, he had been poked and prodded and made to transform this way and that way. Sometimes Bucky had been asked to be there as the primary Engineer and he hated seeing them talk about Steve like he wasn’t there. What was worse, though, was not being there, and just seeing Steve leave the rooms looking downtrodden and sad.

Bucky started treating all the Androids he worked on differently than he once had. He spoke to them directly more than he had, even if they didn’t have the sentience, the personality, the initiative, the un-artificialness that Steve had. Although Steve never mentioned it, he knew it, and whenever he saw Bucky he always looked a little more cheered.

It never felt like enough, though. He hated seeing Steve sad.

A week after he had switched Steve back on, a week of Steve being treated like a brand new toy, Bucky went out to look for him. Steve was supposed to have stopped by the workshop so that Bucky could check up on his maintenance. Steve was usually so prompt that his absence made Bucky worry.

He found him almost an hour later, as far out of the base as he could get without reaching the guarded perimeter, isolated, sitting amongst the trees, half hidden from where he was perched on a fallen tree trunk. He had a paper and pencil in his hands and he was drawing.

Bucky blinked. He had had no idea Steve could draw. Steve seemed so absorbed in what he was doing that Bucky managed to circle him and peer over his shoulder before Steve noticed him with a start.

Bucky looked down at the pad of paper, at the cartoon monkey on its unicycle on a tightrope, beautifully drawn, and forced down the hundred questions that sprang to mind about the discovery of this apparent talent of Steve’s and instead asked;

“Performing monkey?”

Steve nodded. “It’s what I feel like I am to them, sometimes,” he said, not bothering to hide the anger, the upset. “Their performing monkey.”

The muscle in Bucky’s jaw ticked. It _was_ how they had been treating Steve. He hated that they didn’t know that Steve could feel hurt by it, that he could _feel_.

“I didn’t know you could draw,” Bucky attempted to change topic, hoping to distract Steve, swinging his legs over the tree trunk to sit pressed against Steve’s side.

“I like to draw,” Steve informed him.

Bucky shook his head, awed. “You know, all those times you asked me about my hobbies and interests, I never even thought to ask you about yours. It seems so ignorant of me to assume, but, Androids just don’t...”

“Have hobbies?” Steve finished, understanding. “They have skills, but they don’t just do something because they want to, because they enjoy it? Well no, you would not think to ask and are right to assume. That talent is unique to me.”

“You don’t have to tell me you’re special, Steve, I know that already.”

He saw Steve smile from the corner of his eye. Steve nudged him with his shoulder.

“Thanks.”

“I know you, Steve,” Bucky expanded. “And I know this is hurting you, them treating you like you aren’t human. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll have to get used to it, I guess,” Steve shrugged. “Being the performing monkey. I’m not human any…” Steve stopped abruptly.

And suddenly, every question Bucky had had about Steve fell startlingly into place. He turned to stare at Steve, who looked nervously back, like a deer caught in headlights, caught out on something he had not intended to say.

“Last week you were afraid to die ‘again’,” Bucky said slowly, determinedly, “Steve, what did you mean?”

Steve swallowed. “I want to tell you the truth, the secret I’ve been keeping. I really do. And it’s not that I don’t trust you, because I trust you more than anybody in the world,” Steve was quick to add and Bucky’s traitorous heart fluttered at the words. “I’m just afraid that if you know the truth, you might not trust _me_ anymore. That you might see me as some kind of…abomination.”

Bucky shook his head furiously. “No. No I would never think that of you. Hey,” he ducked his head to catch Steve’s lowered gaze, taking the notebook out of Steve’s hands. “Steve, I promised end of the line, pal. Let me prove it to you.”

Steve did not even hesitate, just said it outright, blunt, the way Steve always dealt with things, head on and stubborn.

“I was human.”

The revelation did not surprise Bucky, not now that he had come to that realisation all on his own.

“How?” Bucky asked. “Tell me.”

“Dr Erskine spent some time doing research in a hospital that was fore-fronting the use of the most modern technology and medical equipment in the world,” Steve started, looking a little less sure now that the initial statement had escaped him. “It was based in New York. While he was there he got to know one of the nurses. She was selfless and hardworking and kind. He always claimed to be a good judge of moral character, so he befriended her. Her name was Sarah Rogers.”

Steve was watching him as Bucky immediately caught onto the surname. Bucky’s eyes widened as he stared back and Steve sent him a small, unsure smile. Before Bucky could ask, to confirm what he suspected, Steve carried on.

“Sarah had a son that had a life expectancy of around twenty-five years. He was sickly, frail, had a number of different ailments. Some were treatable, some weren’t. And the cost of treatment was so expensive that even though Sarah slaved away in that hospital every single day, she couldn’t afford any of its modern treatment for her only child. She confided in Dr Erskine. He got to planning a way to help her and her son, but before he could come up with a solution Sarah got terminally sick and died. Her son was only eighteen. He didn’t have anybody. Dr Erskine befriended her son and they remained in contact for four years. And then Sarah’s son got sick. Really sick. And Dr Erskine knew it was going to be the end, so he gave Sarah’s son a choice.”

Steve’s gaze had broken from Bucky’s, his eyes on his hands as he clenched his fists. Bucky reached out and covered one.

“Sarah’s son,” Bucky said, “He was called Steve, wasn’t he?”

Steve nodded, glancing up at him and down again, face scrunching with the grief.

“What did Erskine do?” Bucky asked, “When Steve made the choice to live?”

Steve seemed relieved and emboldened that Bucky was not disturbed by what Steve was telling him. He turned his hand to meet Bucky’s palm with his own and squeezed Bucky’s fingers, his artificial skin feeling soft and real.

Steve was watching their joined fingers curiously as he continued. “Before Sarah had died Erskine had had an idea for creating a memory drive, of sorts, that could store someone’s mind; their conscience, thoughts, feelings, behaviours, memories. He developed it over the four years before Steve was on his deathbed, and he gave Steve a choice. He could live for a few more days and then die, or he could transfer his mind to a drive and potentially live forever, but with a few conditions…”

Bucky had been playing with Steve’s fingers, but the second he understood fully what Steve was telling him, he froze. Steve really _was_ human.

“You really are human,” Bucky said, eyes wide. “I wondered if maybe you were an imitation, a version of a human Erskine had known made real, but your mind…it’s human. You were a human and you still _are_ human.”

Steve nodded, uncertain again. He moved his fingers and only seemed to let out a breath when Bucky began moving his own again. Steve had been holding a breath he didn’t have anymore, or need.

“What were the conditions?” Bucky gently urged Steve to continue.

“One of the conditions was that it wouldn’t be a human body that I was transferred into, it had to be an AI; but Abraham promised to make an AI that would look like me. But Erskine’s plans were expensive. Far too expensive for the funds he had. So he had to find the funding and materials to build such an advanced AI that could take the memory drive in the first place. It would take time, and so another of the conditions was that if my mind was put on a drive, it would have to wait for the body. And it could take years.”

“Jesus, Steve,” Bucky breathed. “What a fucking decision to make.”

“I was going to die either way,” Steve said, “Whether I died on my own or if my mind was taken; it was just that one of those deaths had a life in the future. You’ve got to understand, Buck, the choice I made…the choice I made to have my mind carry on in an artificial body, it wasn’t the immortality I wanted. I just, I wanted to live a little longer. I had so much left to do, so much good I still wanted to do. I wanted to be able to help people. I wanted to join the war efforts. I wanted to fall in love.”

“Of course, Steve,” Bucky said, throat thickening with sorrow for a man that had lost everything, even his own body, everything but his mind. “Of course I understand. You are the most selfless person I’ve ever met…”

“That’s because you’ve never met yourself.”

“Flattery gets you everywhere, Rogers,” Bucky sent him a smile that he hoped looked strong and not too saddened. “Tell me how Stark got involved. I assume it was his research that brought about the body for your mind?”

Steve nodded. “Howard had the technological means and the research on AI advancements, just not the time or the funds to make it happen. Abraham wanted to get a body made as quickly as possible, because he didn’t know how long a drive could last. I was a guinea pig, and he was frightened to leave it too long. And then he learned that the military were funding a new project for an AI Super Soldier. Abraham gave his pitch and told them that he could give them a sentient robot that could think and act for itself. He just didn’t mention that was because it had been a human. There are laws and all kinds of regulations against that. He got the funding, he went to Howard, and only then told Howard the truth. Howard didn’t mind, of course; you’ve met him. He was thrilled to be at the forefront of new science. They built a body to the military’s specifications; a robot that could change its appearance, camouflage, speak a number of languages, have superior strength. But Abraham made me in the image of my old body; my face, my eyes, my hair colour and skin tone, though not my stature. He built my neutral form as this,” Steve gestured to himself, “Which is about six inches taller and a whole lot of muscle bigger than my human form was. He made me into the man I could have been in life if I hadn’t had all the health complications that stunted my growth. He made me into a man that I had wanted to be, that could cause change and yet know what it was like not to be able to harness any strength. But he made it so that the smallest I could turn back to was my original human form, to remind me of myself, I guess,” he shrugged. “The drive with my mind and consciousness on it took to the technology of this body, and then they woke me up. They called it ‘Project Rebirth’, because it was like I was being born again.”

“How long had it taken them to build the body?” Bucky asked. How long had Steve’s mind been sitting on a drive? How long had Steve been as good as dead?

“Three years,” Steve whispered, “Until they had perfected this model. It was like I had died for three years.” He looked up at Bucky, searching his eyes, his expression. “It’s why I don’t like getting shut down.”

“It feels like dying again,” Bucky surmised, clasping Steve’s hands tighter again. “Jesus, Steve, I’m so sorry. When you got injured and I had to shut you down…”

“I’m not sorry. You saved my life doing what you did. I’m so grateful to have been given a second chance at life. You helped me hold onto it, Bucky. I am forever in your debt for that.”

“You’re not indebted to me.” Bucky smiled at him. “You’re my friend. I care about you. Of course I wanted to save you. There’s no debt owed for that.”

“You know, even before I was made a Mecha, I didn’t have a lot of friends. And then after Project Rebirth I was told to be prepared, once people knew that I was Mecha, to be mistrusted and feared. I thought I would have to get by on my own.”

“Well, you don’t have to,” Bucky insisted. “You’ve got me, and the Howlies. I know they think of you as a friend.”

Instead of cheering him up, as was Bucky’s intention, Steve suddenly sat forwards, expression panicked and urgent. “You have to keep this between us, Bucky, please. I don’t know if everyone would be as understanding as you. And Howard could get arrested and Peggy could get into trouble, Abraham’s name would get thrown into disrepute. Phillips would put me in a lab. They’d make me a lab rat. I could be shut down…”

“Steve, Steve,” Bucky interrupted, “Hey. This stays between us.” He kept his gaze steady on Steve’s, communicating his honesty as best he could. “I promise.”

Steve immediately relaxed, his shoulders slumping and he sent Bucky a sheepish, grateful smile. “Thank you.”

Bucky nodded. He would rather die than hurt Steve like that. Steve seemed to see Bucky’s genuineness to the fact and relaxed even further. They ended up sitting curled close together around a portable heater Bucky had brought with him, not wanting to go back to camp just yet. Steve didn’t need the heater really; he could turn his sensors off and ran hot at the best of times. He was running hot enough that Bucky ended up sitting closer to Steve than the heater. They made light hearted conversation; Steve showed Bucky some of the drawings in his sketch book, which were all intriguing and way better than anything Bucky could ever dream of doing. He could engineer sketch, of course, he could draw to to-scale piece of machinery, but he didn’t have Steve’s imagination. The artwork was a little rough at the start of the sketchbook but got significantly better as the pages went on. Steve said that his new fingers had taken some getting used to, to achieve his old style, but was finally getting the hang of it.

Bucky was surprised and flattered to find some drawings of him. Sure, there were also drawings of Agent Carter and the Howlies, Howard Stark and a couple of people that Bucky assumed to be Dr Erskine and Steve’s mother; she looked just like him. But none of them showed up as consistently as Bucky. Steve did not seem the least embarrassed about it either.

“Your drawings are very kind to me,” Bucky grinned as he came across another collection of studies of his face.

“They don’t do you justice,” Steve corrected. “I tried to capture you as I see you, but I have had to come to terms with the fact that you – and the beauty of who you are - can’t be confined to pencil on paper.”

It was Bucky’s turn to heat up around the ears. Steve thought he was beautiful and his heart was thumping because of it. His stomach fluttering. Steve thought he could not confine Bucky’s true self to paper. To distract himself from the sudden and strong urge to kiss him for it, Bucky quickly turned the topic to _Steve’s_ true self.

“How did you look as a human?” Bucky asked in the small space between them; when had they closed the gap this much? “Would you show me?”

Steve moved back suddenly, and before Bucky could apologise for upsetting him, Steve sent him a wry smile, before his form began to shift. As he had said; his eyes, hair and face stayed the same, even if his cheeks did hollow out and grow a little thinner. His body seemed to shrink on itself to almost impossible proportions considering his inner workings, but suddenly a very slight and small Steve Rogers was sitting in front of him.

“This is me,” Steve said, wary, holding his hands out, “The real me.”

“Steve,” Bucky breathed.

He should have known that Steve would be beautiful no matter the size. Bucky reached out to touch him, and was relieved when Steve let him.

Bucky traced Steve’s thinner face, his sharp cheekbones and jaw. He could circle his fingers around Steve’s forearm with ease. There was something delicate about him at his human size, but sturdy, and so damn pretty, with his long lashes and his blue eyes and his tentative smile, pale skin and petite frame.

“You really are incredible,” Bucky murmured. He couldn’t help himself, and knowing the truth about Steve, seeing him like this, it only made Bucky want him _more_. Because Steve was still human. He could think and feel and love. And maybe Steve had feelings for him, just as much as Bucky had for Steve.

Steve did his tell-tale head-duck in place of a blush. “The technology is one of a kind.”

“Not just the technology, Steve,” Bucky said with an honest shake of his head. “You.”

Steve’s smile turned soft, fond, flattered. He was staring at Bucky like he was incredible too. Bucky didn’t know about that, but he did know that Steve was. Somehow, in a matter of weeks, Steve had become everything to Bucky. And damn it all if Bucky wasn’t head over heels thrilled about it.


	2. Chapter 2

Although it had previously seemed impossible that Bucky and Steve could spend even more time together, they became near inseparable after that. Bucky heard the whisper of ‘metal-lover’ behind his back every now and again; other soldiers believing it to be an engineer’s obsession with a new piece of technology, a perverse lust for the artificial. Bucky ignored them because he knew better.

Bucky would wake up in the night and see Steve lying on his back in the next bed, eyes closed, ‘sleeping’, the wire of his charger discreetly plugged into the back of his neck through the mattress and under the pillow. He knew this wasn’t obsession or lust. He was in love with Steve.

He wasn’t disgusted with himself like those who called him ‘metal-lover’ thought he should be. He wasn’t embarrassed by his feelings. He was a man who was in love with another man. Another human soul. He was not concerned by what others thought of him. He never had. He was not concerned by the fact that he loved Steve, or even whether Steve loved him back or not. What concerned him most was what could happen to them in the future; during the war, and when it was finally over.

“If Project Rebirth was funded by the military, then you’re military property,” Bucky had pointed out to Steve, worried that the military might keep him when the war was over. The war would end for Bucky, but if he was military property the war would never be over for Steve. “What happens when the war is over?”

“Howard added in a stipulation that after the war is over, if we win it, that he gets me back,” Steve had explained. “From there I’ll be free. Abraham and Howard made this body to be able to experience human life – so that I can experience human life – as closely as artificiality can. I can feel touch, my skin has sensors, receptors. I can feel pain. I can have sex, function like a male human. I can’t have children, obviously, or get sick, or…or die in the way humans can. I don’t eat. I need charging. But in every other sense I can live like a human can. And of course, I can feel like a human can.” Steve had reached out and thoughtfully traced his fingers over Bucky’s hand and Bucky had forced down the shiver of anticipation at the implication of Steve’s feelings for him.

They hadn’t acted on it though. The fighting was picking up pace again after a brief lull, and they were back in the battle before too long.

Steve had finally shown Bucky where to find the drive that his entire mind was loaded on to, in case Bucky ever needed to know in an emergency. It almost seemed too delicate, too fragile for words, and even though Bucky knew that Erskine and Stark would have made it as indestructible as they could, he was still worried.

He was even more worried the day that the Howling Commandos were sent on a mission and Steve wasn’t sanctioned to join them.

“What do you mean he can’t come with us?” Dum-Dum said, failing at keeping his voice level. “He has been training with us. He is one of us. We need him on this mission.”

“It’s a stake-out,” Phillips argued. “You won’t need him for an observation job. Rogers is needed for a solo mission, a discreet infiltration op; his assets are needed elsewhere and will be much better utilised than on observation with the Commandos.”

“And what if he needs his engineer?” Bucky argued softly, glancing at Steve - who looked as unhappy about it as Bucky felt – making eye contact with him and away again.

“It will be a matter of days. Just make sure he is charged and at full function beforehand and then do maintenance once he is out again. If he malfunctions in their territory there wouldn’t be a single thing you could do for him, even if you were there.”

Bucky knew that, of course. But it didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

“I don’t like this, Buck,” Steve said to him the day that Bucky and the Commandos were moving out to their stake-out and Steve to his solo mission. “Being separated like this.”

“You’re one of us,” Bucky agreed, “One of the Howlies. You should be with us.” He sighed heavily. “But I’ve got to follow my orders, and you’ve got to follow yours.”

“I don’t have to,” Steve insisted stubbornly, “I’m not programmed to.”

“Which still makes you like every other soldier, and you have to,” Bucky reminded him sadly. “Just, make sure you get out of there in one piece, ok? Even if it means leaving without the intel on Hydra’s tech. You hear?” He forced Steve to meet his gaze. “You hearing me, Stevie? Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.”

Steve’s eyebrow arched with challenge, not fully able to mask his discontent at their separation. “How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, his chest still heavy with the feeling that parting ways was a dumb fucking idea, and played along with Steve’s light-hearted attempt for both their sakes. “You’re a punk.”

Even as he said it he was striding forwards to pull Steve into a tight hug.

“And you’re a jerk,” Steve murmured back at him, soft in his ear.

Bucky wanted so badly to kiss Steve goodbye, but something held him back; the wish not to start something now and have to part ways and make it all harder than it already was. In his confliction, he just held Steve a little tighter, as tight as Steve was holding him.

“You be careful too,” Steve said. “Observation or not, if anything feels wrong, get out. Don’t make me regret that I wasn’t there.”

Bucky smiled, a little wobbly one, holding Steve’s shoulders as he finally drew back. He didn’t miss the way Steve’s eyes lingered on his mouth, like Steve had been thinking exactly the same thoughts. Bucky forced himself to not give in. There would be time for that later, he hoped. God he hoped they could work out whatever this was when they got back and the fighting calmed down again.

Bucky wanted to say that he would be careful, remind him it was a simple observation, promise that he would come back, ask Steve to promise the same. But he couldn’t find the words to reply, so offered Steve a cocky grin and a salute instead.

***

They were barely there two days before the ambush. And Bucky thanked any god in existence that Steve had not been with them.

Hydra were desperate to find out the secrets of all the technology of their enemies. They had heard the rumours of advanced androids. Of course they had; they had had a spy in the lab with Erskine, even if Erskine and the spy were both killed before the information could get out any further. They knew something had been planned, and they wanted details. If they had gotten Steve and realised what he was - that an android could look and act so much like a human - they would have dismantled him down to the last artificial bone.

But Hydra didn’t find any advanced technology in their ambush. They got six men to add to the several other ambushed squads that they were torturing for information, instead. And it had only taken one look at Bucky’s dog tag for him to be revealed as the squad’s engineer and to be separated from the others.

That had been four days ago. Or five. Bucky wasn’t sure. He had lost track.

Pain would do that to you.

They tortured him for two days. Burns, cuts to his feet, threats to his fingers and limbs, water rushed over his face until Bucky could not breath or think. Emotional, physical, mental torture. But Bucky would not break. He would never give them a single damn thing that they wanted. Because it was essentially Steve that they wanted.

After two days of resolute silence (save for the repeating of his name, rank and ID number like it was the only thing that might save his sanity) and resilience to torture, something changed. They began poking and prodding at him instead. They began talking around him in whispers.

And then, a day later, they injected something into his arm.

And then, god, then the real torture came. It burned, clawed inside him, it felt like he was being ripped apart from the inside out. He screamed and thrashed on the table they had him tied to. He begged silently, jaw working, but still he did not say a thing. But that was also because they didn’t ask him.

Strange kind of torture, causing him the worst pain they had managed thus far and not interrogating him at the same time.

They injected him several more times over the days that followed, and seemed more and more excited every time he survived one of the stints. He was so out of it he couldn’t hear why they were excited, but he could tell from the cadences rising and falling as a needle pierced his skin once again.

Of course he was surviving the injections.

Bucky Barnes was resilient. Bucky Barnes refused to die like this.

Bucky Barnes refused to let Steve down, because god-damn-it, he needed to see Steve again. He just had to.

And so he kept repeating ‘Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, _32557038’_ over and over and over again, keeping himself present, keeping himself sane, and wishing that he could see Steve again.

So when he finally did see Steve, standing over him with pitch black hair, eyes as dark as the shadows around them, Bucky honestly thought he was hallucinating.

“Bucky? Oh my god.”

Bucky knew that voice.

“Is that?” Bucky murmured.

“It’s me. It’s Steve.”

“Steve?” Bucky asked, dazed, staring blearily up at this dark-haired man that looked and sounded just like Steve.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Hands descended on Bucky, but for the first time in days they were hands that were gentle, there to help him, as Steve ran careful fingers over Bucky’s beaten body. “Jesus, Bucky, what have they done to you?" His voice sounded thick with sadness. Thick with tears, almost, if he had had them to shed. "We’re getting you out of here, come on.”

Steve wrenched the bindings from Bucky’s body and helped him upright, hands returning to quickly move over him, assessing for injuries.

“Steve,” Bucky said again, like it was the only thing he could say now, or think about now. Maybe that was true.

“Buck,” Steve breathed, his palm cupping Bucky’s face. “I thought you were dead.”

Bucky looked down at Steve and frowned. “I thought you were taller.”

“I’m disguised,” Steve said, “Just in case.” But even as he said it, he gained back some height and muscle mass, so better to swing Bucky’s arm over his shoulder and take his weight. Bucky was glad of it. He doubted he could walk very far on his own.

The sudden distant sound of shouting had Bucky jerking instinctively, frightened.

“It’s ok, Buck,” Steve whispered to him fiercely. “They aren’t going to touch you again. I won’t let them. Not ever again. But we have to leave, now. This place is going to blow.”

“You got the others?” Bucky asked faintly as Steve began to practically carry him towards the exit.

“They are out. I found them first, but when you weren’t there and they said they hadn’t seen you for days…” Steve’s voice was steady at first - even with the pace and weight he was taking on, but that was the beauty of artificiality, Bucky supposed - but at the mention of Bucky not being there, Steve’s tone choked. “I had to come and look for you. I had to be sure.”

“You found me.”

“Of course I did,” Steve said, like there was no other option. “I found you.” He took a hitched breath. “Jesus, Buck, I was terrified they’d killed you.” His voice dropped to a worried whisper, “What the hell were they doing to you?”

“Not now,” Bucky pleaded. “Just get me out of here first.”

“Ok,” Steve hoisted Bucky further into his arms. “Ok. I’m getting you out of here. I promise.”

Bucky knew without a doubt that Steve would keep his word and trusted him to get them there, letting Steve take his body weight and lead the way.

The first shakes of explosions in the building were far away, but by the time they neared the exit, the fire had caught up with them. Steve shoved Bucky across a walkway a second before it caved between them, Steve leaping back to avoid falling into the firey abyss.

Bucky leant heavily against the nearest railing for support, staring with confused horror at the flames below, and then up at Steve.

“Go!” Steve shouted across the gap, which had to be several metres; too far for a normal man to jump. “Get out of here!”

“No!” Bucky shouted back, determined, even as his legs shook beneath him. “Not without you!”

“I’m trying to keep you safe, damn it!”

“And what about you?” Bucky demanded. “You think I can just leave you here? I can’t leave you here Steve! I won’t!”

“I’m going to have to jump. I might not make it,” Steve warned, panicked. “I don’t want you to see…”

“You’re Steve fucking Rogers!” Bucky choked back, just loud enough to be heard over the roaring of fire, getting closer by the second. “Of course you’ll make it. You’ll make it because we aren’t finished here, pal, this ain’t the end of the fucking line.”

Steve stared at him for a second, before visibly preparing himself to jump, backing up several paces.

“I love you,” Steve yelled at him across the gap.

“Yeah, well,” Bucky was exhausted, in pain, afraid, but his heart could still manage the warm clinch of joy at hearing that Steve loved him back. “I ain’t saying it back until you get over here so I can say it right into your damn face.”

“You’re a jerk,” Steve called back, audibly torn between happiness at knowing his feelings were returned and gearing himself up for the leap. His hair and eyes had bled back to their blonde and blue, his body muscling to its full capacity in order to make the jump.

Another chunk of walkway fell away. Bucky panicked. “Just fucking jump, punk!”

And jump Steve did. It was the singular most dramatic and terrifying damn thing Bucky had ever seen; an explosion lighting up behind Steve as he leapt across the gap like some angel rising from hell, and he was the most perfect fucking man in existence. Too good to be true. Too good to be human. Maybe that was why Steve had been chosen to be the world’s first Mecha, because Steve was too pure to be human.

Steve made it and Bucky should never have doubted that he would. The blonde almost collided into Bucky, swerving to avoid impacting Bucky’s injured body too hard, and Bucky had to catch him and pull Steve to him to stop him from skidding straight off the other side of the walkway.

And then, Steve was right there, centimetres away, their eyes level, and Steve said, “I’m right in your damn face, now, Buck.”

Bucky grinned, ignoring the pain for a moment, for the feel of his heart soaring.

“I’m in love with you, Steve Rogers.”

Steve smiled that perfect, boyish smile, pushed Bucky’s spiked, greasy hair back with his hands, and leant in to kiss him, short and sweet, but firm, like they were sealing some kind of deal.

“Thank you,” Steve whispered against Bucky’s lips, his gaze so sincere. “For loving me.”

The fact that Steve had never been romantically loved before Bucky hurt something awful, and Bucky wanted to admonish him for thanking Bucky for something Steve had always deserved. But the fire was getting hot, Bucky was getting lightheaded, and the exit was so, so close.

“We chose a dramatic spot," he said, the first beads of sweat rolling down his forehead.

“Well, we don’t exactly seem to be able to do things by halves.”

“All in, babe, all in,” Bucky agreed, “But can we please leave before we set alight?”

“I think I’d melt, rather than set alight,” Steve said thoughtfully as he hauled Bucky’s arm back over his shoulder and continued to get him out of the building.

Bucky managed the energy to punch Steve in the shoulder. “Don’t even talk like that.”

“Sorry Buck,” Steve apologised sincerely.

It wasn’t the last time that day, or even that hour, that Steve had to apologise to Bucky.

“You what?” Bucky hissed.

They had found the other released prisoners outside of the burning compound; the Howlies and the other squads that had been captured. Steve had just lowered Bucky carefully onto a block of concrete outside when Dum-Dum had asked Steve where the rest of the men were.

Steve had asked what he was talking about, before understanding that Dum-Dum meant the rescue party, shuffling sheepishly and revealing that he had come alone.

“I came alone,” Steve said again at Bucky’s incredulous words. “When I got back to the camp, you guys weren’t back yet, and you should have been. I went to Phillips and found out you’d all been captured days ago. I asked when the rescue mission was heading out, and Phillips said another couple of days. Another couple of days! Anything can happen in forty-eight hours. So I took matters into my own hands.”

“When you say you took matters into your own hands…” Bucky said slowly, holding his side and hugging his arm into his chest; it was still numb from the multiple injections. He felt nauseous. "You don’t mean you went AWOL, do you?”

Steve wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Sorry Buck.”

“Jesus, Stevie,” Bucky shook his head and then groaned at another bout of dizziness.

“Hey,” Steve crouched down in front of Bucky so that their eyes were level. “If I hadn’t have done it, you could have been killed.” He stood up to look earnestly around at the others, “You all could have been. They weren’t acting fast enough, so I came instead.”

“Believe me, we’re grateful, Steve,” Gabe said, “Some of the squaddies that had been here longer than us…Bucky…” Bucky felt the Howlies attention switch to him and whatever state he appeared to be in; greasy hair, bruises, cuts, syringe bruises, sickly pallor no doubt. “They didn’t have much time left,” Gabe continued. “You’ve saved lives. But Bucky’s right to be concerned; you could get in some deep shit for this. It’s bad enough when a human soldier goes AWOL, but an Android?”

“Must be that I’m programmed for total loyalty to my squad above all else. Because I don’t care about the repercussions,” Steve said, lying smoothly to everyone who didn't know what Bucky did; that Steve had total free will. “All that matters is that all of you are free. They can’t decommission me for that.”

Bucky wasn’t certain that that would be the case. He did not think Steve did either, despite his white lie to the Howlies about ‘programming’ and his faux confidence.

“Wait,” One of the squaddies Bucky didn’t recognise, wearing the insignia of a different unit, said, “You’re an Android?”

Steve visibly tensed, but Morita just clapped him on the shoulder.

“Haven’t you heard of CAPT-AI-N (America)?”

Several eyes widened around them.

“We’d heard rumours,” the squaddie said.

“He looks so real,” Bucky heard another squaddie whisper to another. “He acts so real.”

“Well you all owe him your lives,” Falsworth cut in, “Don’t forget that.”

“We won’t,” the squaddie vowed. “And we’ll speak in his defence if it comes to it.”

There were murmurs of agreement.

“Where even are we?” Another squaddie piped up. “They blindfolded us so we wouldn’t know where we were going. How do we get out of here?”

“I brought a truck,” Steve said.

“You _brought_ a truck?” Bucky rasped in doubting exasperation.

“I borrowed a truck,” Steve corrected.

“Borrowed?” Morita’s eyebrow arched with amusement.

“I stole a truck,” Steve admitted in defeat, crossing his arms over his chest. “Do you lot want to get out of here or not?”

Everyone erupted into movement.

Bucky tried to push himself up to standing, his legs shaking and not co-operating, until Steve darted forwards to steady him.

“Buck,” Steve asked, eyes moving over Bucky’s face with concern.

“I’m fine,” Bucky tried to bat Steve’s worry aside, “I’m more worried about whatever mess you’ve got yourself in.”

Steve’s face hardened. “Now is not the time to be worrying about me, Buck. Now is the time to be worrying about you. You are the priority here. I think there was a medic among the squaddies we released, we will get him to look at you.”

“Not now, Steve,” Bucky begged, “This place will be swarming with Hydra in the hour, we gotta go.” He needed to get out of there and never return. He needed to get out of there before they got captured again. He couldn’t withstand that torture again.

“In the truck home, then,” Steve suggested, his tone more hopeful of Bucky’s co-operation than firm.

“Ok, Stevie,” Bucky gave in just so that Steve would stop looking at him like a kicked puppy.

“Can you make it to the truck?” Steve asked as he eased Bucky’s arm around his shoulders so that he could help him. “It’s about twenty minutes out. What injuries do you have?”

“Mainly cuts and bruises,” Bucky grit his teeth as they started to move.

“Anything we should be concerned about?”

Bucky shook his head, “Nah.”

“Buck.” Bucky glanced sideways to see Steve frowning back at him. “I was in hospital enough as a kid to know what syringe marks look like.”

Bucky turned his arm towards himself.

“What did they do to you Buck?” Steve said, tone so heavy and sad that Bucky caved near instantly.

“Injected me with something several times a day. I don’t know what it was, what it does…”

“Any side effects?”

Bucky shook his head. “It caused me pain for about an hour afterwards. Maybe that was it? To torture me?”

God, that pain. It had felt like his bones were being ripped apart and shoved roughly back together.

“I don’t know,” Steve said, “But I don’t like it. As soon as we get back, you’re getting checked out, ok?”

Bucky gripped tighter to Steve’s shoulder. “What if it’s something bad, Steve?” He finally voiced his true fear aloud. “What if they test me and it’s something bad?”

Steve wouldn’t be the only one they would use as a lab rat. Bucky would be poked and prodded some more, injected some more, tested on some more, taken apart and put back together some more. Or they might send him home. They could hospitalise him. They could take him away from Steve.

“If it’s bad then we’ll deal with it. Together.” Steve’s arm tightened its hold around Bucky’s waist.

“They’ll put me in confinement or some shit, send me home. I ain’t doing that Steve. I just won’t tell them…”

“Like hell you won’t,” Steve hissed back.

“This is not your decision to make,” Bucky griped back. How had they gone from kissing _finally_ to this bickering? “Sorry,” Bucky added, quickly. “I’m just…”

Scared. He was scared. He couldn’t say it aloud, but he knew Steve would know what he meant, because Steve was audibly scared for him too.

“I know you’re worried what they might find, but we both know you’d be stupid to ignore something that could be serious,” Steve huffed. He paused, thinking, even as his steps and hold on Bucky didn’t. “I can speak to Peggy. Maybe she can organise a private doctor to look at you, confidential.”

There wasn’t much to debate. It seemed like the only possible option for Bucky to be medically checked, but potentially have it go unreported. “And if there’s something wrong,” Bucky said, “Then the decision with how to deal with it would be mine and not the army’s.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“It’s what I want,” Bucky said adamantly as Steve navigated around a tree stump and Bucky grunted in pain as his ribs were jostled. “I want to stay with you. Someone has gotta watch your back. Fuck Steve, I leave you for five fucking minutes and you steal a goddamn truck, defy orders and go AWOL.”

“It was more than five minutes Buck,” Steve countered through gritted teeth, “It was days. _Days._ I thought you were dead. I was so scared that you could be dead. Or that they were hurting you. And they were. I don’t regret coming for you, I won’t. I love you.”

Bucky’s knees buckled a bit. And if it wasn’t just from the exhaustion and pain, Bucky didn’t say anything as Steve held him up and got them the rest of the way to the truck. Steve told the released prisoners that he would drive back and nobody questioned him.

“Aye aye Captain,” Morita said, utterly sincere despite the jesting phrasing, as the others started to climb into the back.

“Bucky, you’re in the worst shape of all of us,” Dum-Dum said, “Ride up front with Steve where it’s more comfortable.”

“I’m not gunna break,” Bucky grumbled half-heartedly, secretly relieved as Steve, Dum-Dum and Gabe helped him up into the front. “This ride is gunna be hell.”

“Better than walking,” Gabe said cheerfully. “Thankfully we have a stolen truck, courtesy of our very own Cap. Rebellion suits you, Steve.”

“He’ll be regretting it later, when Phillips gets hold of him,” Bucky groused over his growing concern.

“We’ll handle that,” Dum-Dum dismissed.

“Let’s get you all home first,” Steve said, jumping into the cab and behind the wheel. “We will deal with that later.”

Once Dum-Dum and Gabe were in the back with the others and the doors were closed behind them, Steve began to steadily drive them back to camp.

Steve kept glancing at Bucky to check on him, every time Bucky hissed as the truck hit another bump.

“I was going to suggest you try and get some sleep or rest on the way home,” Steve said, tone tight with sympathy and worry, “But that’s not going to happen is it?”

“I don’t think so Steve,” Bucky admitted. But he reached over to lace his hand with Steve’s free one. “At least I have good company.”

“I was so worried, Buck,” Steve said, eyes fixed on the road as he said it, even as the signs of his worry showed at the downturned corners of his mouth.

“You’ve got me back now.”

“I’m not losing you again.”

“Yeah well, I’m not losing you, either. You’re stuck with me for life, Rogers.”

“You say that like it would be a bad thing.” Steve squeezed his fingers. “I happen to like the sound of that.”

***

“AWOL, Rogers! You went AWOL!” Phillips was shouting at Steve. “I was imagining having to call my superiors and tell them that Stark’s pet project was DIA barely months after I sanctioned its introduction in the field!”

DIA, because androids weren’t considered ‘Killed In Action’, merely Destroyed.

“He didn’t go AWOL,” Bucky piped up, only to receive a glare from Phillips. “Sir,” Bucky amended, using his hold on Steve’s shoulder to push himself to standing. “He serves our unit and we were captured. He rescued the Howling Commandos, as he was ordered to do.”

“He was ordered, Sergeant, to wait for us to put together a rescue mission. He defied orders of his superiors, went AWOL and walked straight into enemy territory; could have walked straight into enemy hands. He put our entire operation at jeopardy.” Phillip gaze fixed back on Steve. “If my superiors hear of it they could file for Roger’s removal from the field. Or worse.”

“You can’t take him,” Bucky limped his way in front of Steve a little more to act as some kind of physical barrier and the Howlies all moved in closer.

“Would you have him shut down, Colonel?” Dum-Dum added, “For saving the lives of thirty-two men?”

“If he had waited for the rescue mission, Sergeant Barnes would have been dead,” Gabe said bluntly, “And so would several of the others.”

There were murmurs of agreement from the rescued men behind them and even from the rest of the regiment who had emerged from various buildings and tents to watch the commotion. Steve stiffened a little under Bucky’s hand and Bucky glanced at him to see the surprise on his face as he looked around at the soldiers who had not long since been treating him with suspicion and disrespect.

Phillips seemed to take stock of Bucky’s inevitably pale complexion and wounds, before his eyes scanned the others around them, those supporting Steve, and those watching.

Bucky stared Phillips down. “Let’s hear it for CAPT-AI-N (America)!” he shouted as loud as his hoarse and wearied voice could manage.

The crowd around them, rescued soldiers and regiment alike, cheered.

Phillips stepped in towards them as the hollering continued. “Alright, Barnes, you’ve made your point. I will review and see what is said, but if a decision above me is made to shut him down then…”

“They should be giving him a medal of valour,” Bucky said, “Not threats of shutting him down.”

Phillips held up his hands, “Despite going AWOL, I’m not disagreeing with you Barnes. I’m still pissed at you, Rogers, make no mistake, but despite my protestations to your behaviour, I am glad to have the Howling Commandos back with the regiment alive. And I will fight your corner.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Steve replied. His tone sounded more purposefully robotic than normal, like he was just an Android obeying the orders. Steve was a smart one.

“You steal one of my trucks again and I’ll personally boot you into the scrap heap, hear me?”

“Yes Colonel.”

“Good.” Phillips sniffed, no longer looking angry in the slightest. “Barnes, let’s get you and the injured to a medic.”

“Actually, Steve and I have been ordered to see Agent Carter first.”

“Oh?”

“After we called through to you about the liberation of the prisoners, she called through with the order. She didn’t sound particularly happy. Said she had had Stark on the line.” Steve did a good job at looking sheepish and Phillips bought it.

“Rather you than me, Rogers. You’re both dismissed.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Good to have you back Barnes.”

 “Good to be back, Sir.”

Jesus, was it good to be back, even if it was just base camp. He was free, he was away from his tormentors, his torturers. He was back with Steve.

***

As promised, Agent Carter got a medic to look at Bucky privately and although they had been concerned initially that whatever had been injected into Bucky could be debilitating, or worse, fatal, but whatever it was, it was untraceable and eventually deemed not to be causing any kind of negative impact, if it was even still in Bucky’s bloodstream at all. Internally, he was ok and the external wounds took a little longer to heal; though much faster than expected and without a single scar. The mental and emotional recovery, however, would take a hell of a lot longer than that.

But Bucky was strong and he could handle it. It helped having Steve with him, though. Steve didn’t need sleep or exercise or toilet breaks, so he had a charger set up by Bucky’s bedside and sat by his side near constantly, when Phillips didn’t need him. He kept Bucky entertained while he was bedridden and healing. He soothed Bucky after Bucky was sucked into nightmare after nightmare; spread out on that cold slab once again, syringes and knives and pain and the repeating of _Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes,_ _32557038_ that had kept him sane for days, even if waking in the middle of the night muttering it made him look _in_ sane. Steve would just take his hand, smile softly at him, and start talking to him about anything and everything.

One night, Steve leant forwards to kiss him and Bucky breathed “Steve,” against his lips in a soft warning, “You gotta check no-one is around…”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Steve replied, earnest and a little unsure, his eyes wide, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” Bucky murmured, lifting his hand out of the covers to the back of Steve’s head to encourage him to close the gap between them. Steve’s lips were so damn soft. And felt so real and…

“Hey,” Bucky finally found his self-control and pushed Steve gently back again. “It’s ok, but you’ve gotta be careful, Stevie.”

“It’s been a long time since anyone’s cared about men being in a…”

“It’s not that we’re men Steve, you know that,” Bucky said, searching Steve’s face. “A relationship in the same regiment is foolish enough; you know they could split us up. But a relationship between a man and what they believe to be an Android? Steve, I’d get in serious trouble.”

Steve frowned in sudden understanding, ever full of righteous anger, “They’d believe you were using an Android for your own purposes.”

“Exactly. They’d take you away, brand me a freak, I could get tried or dropped as an Engineer. My career would be over. And the only way we could explain that you are one hundred percent willing and consenting is by telling them the truth about you, which would get you, Stark and Carter in a fuck load of trouble.”

“Fuck,” Steve said, “I should’ve thought…sorry, Buck.”

“Hey, don’t apologise. Never apologise to me for a kiss like that, because I’m sure not,” Bucky said, “Hey, look at me.” Steve’s downcast blue eyes snapped up to his. “And it doesn’t mean that I don’t want you. Because believe me Steve,” Bucky shifted in his bed just at the thought of it, biting his lip, watching Steve staring at him with renewed focus. “I want you so, so bad. We have just got to be careful and keep this secret, ok? Just until the war is over and Stark gives you your freedom, yeah?

Steve nodded, speechless and mouth dropped open, eyes still caught on where Bucky had had his lip trapped between his teeth.

Bucky sent him a confident little smirk; it’d been a while since he’d used it, and never for anyone he loved so much. “Good. Now you can kiss me again.”

Steve glanced around them at the otherwise deserted medical bay – the boy was quick learner - and then leant down to Bucky’s mouth to do just that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to those who have left kudos and comments and bookmarked so far. It really means a lot and motivates me to keep writing <3 I will be replying to comments asap. Hope you enjoyed Chapter 2!


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky was given the all clear in record time, but even so, the day of his discharge from the medical unit couldn’t have come soon enough. Steve had said that he would come to meet Bucky and although Bucky was impatient to leave, he waited for Steve, pacing back and forth beside the bed that had been his home for ten days.

When he heard the door open he spun around, smiling, expecting Steve, but was met by one of the Medical AI-ds.

“Sergeant James Barnes,” the Android spoke in the formal and polite tone that Androids possessed as he held up a phone. “Mr Howard Stark wishes to speak with you.”

“Thanks,” Bucky took the phone and waited until the AI-d had left before answering, “Howard?”

“Bucky,” Howard’s tone was chirpy and thrilled, “It is good to hear your voice. When I heard you were MIA I admit I got a little concerned.”

“Just a little?” Bucky repeated, smirking. Over the months and many conversations he and Howard Stark had shared since their first meeting, they had come to be familiar and jesting with one another.

“Well, it was a little when compared to the concern of our Steve. He was beside himself.” There was a triumphant pause. “He got you back, though.”

“He did.”

“I hear he also is being celebrated since your return, finally, as he should be. Bravest stubborn good-hearted bastard I’ve ever met.”

“You’re telling me,” Bucky said, not meaning to let the amount of fondness seep into his voice that did, but Stark knew Steve was human, so Bucky was not too concerned by it. “And yes, he is. He’s finally getting the recognition he deserves, even if they all still think he’s Android.” 

If they had known Steve was human, he'd have been given a medal for his actions. But they all thought he was Android, so naturally, he didn't.

“We know better," Howard said. "That’s what counts.”

Bucky hummed in agreement.

“I won’t keep you any longer, Bucky. But I am thrilled that you are free from Hydra and in one piece. Please tell Steve that I have heard about his heroics and I am highly disappointed he hasn’t called to tell me himself; modesty is something I never have understood. Also tell him there’s a suit to go with that shield and I’m sending it over. I think you’ll appreciate it, Barnes.”

Before Bucky could enquire further, Stark had ended the call. He found out what Howard had meant a week or so later, when Steve’s uniform arrived; garish, all stars and stripes, yes, but it was also skin-tight, and he understood Howard’s meaning. He did not quite know how Howard had figured it out, but he decided he didn’t care, because Howard was right. He did appreciate Steve’s new suit. He appreciated it very much.

“I don’t know, Buck,” Steve frowned turning around in the suit, which clung to him in all the right places. “He can’t expect me to fight in this, right?”

“Maybe for press shots, it’s not exactly subtle for the kind of stealth missions we go on,” Bucky leaned back in the armchair of the hotel room they were currently occupying, arms crossed lazily over his chest, eyeing Steve slowly up and down.

They were on the first day of a well-deserved and needed temporary leave for their unit; to recuperate before returning to the fight. It wasn’t long a break enough to visit home, but Bucky had exchanged a number of video calls with his parents and Becca since his liberation. They had home leave coming up in a few months, so he wasn’t too heartbroken this break was only a short one. The Howlies had booked rooms in a hotel in the nearest city not torn apart by technology and warfare. Steve had nearly been kept by Phillips, because Androids did not need emotional recovery, which was fair only because Phillips did not know the truth. Agent Carter had somehow swayed it. As Steve’s engineer, Bucky had been given Steve to ‘look after’. Bucky didn’t care in the slightest; it meant he had been ordered to keep Steve with him in his private bedroom. It was an order he was more than happy to follow.

And Steve had been thrilled to be allowed leave like the rest of the human soldiers, even as he had looked a little haunted at all the Androids in the unit still working as they loaded up into the truck.

He had perked up though. It wasn’t the only thing that was perky, Bucky had noticed, as Steve turned around in a circle, frowning at himself in the mirror, before turning to frown at Bucky. “I’m not going to wear this for press shots.”

Bucky shrugged. “That’s for Phillips to decide.”

“He won’t choose this outfit.”

Bucky cocked his head a little. “Maybe Howard didn’t make it for you to wear in public.”

“What?” Steve looked at him in confusion for a second, before his face cleared with the realisation of what Bucky meant. “Oh.” His forehead scrunched adorably, “Oh. Seriously?”

Bucky shrugged again. “Maybe. I don’t know. All I know is that he said I’d appreciate it.”

Steve watched him, finally paying attention to Bucky’s purposefully trailing gaze. “And…do you?”

Bucky nodded, slow, dragged his tongue along his bottom lip. “Very much.”

It was Steve’s turn to tilt his head to the side, curious. “Oh.” He took a step towards Bucky’s armchair. “Are you sure?”

Bucky grinned, sitting up and uncrossing his arms to rest them on his thighs. “Well I could take a closer look at those stars and stripes.”

Steve smiled, eyes crinkling and he closed the gap between them, stepping obediently into the space left when Bucky parted his legs to accommodate him. Bucky rested his hands on Steve’s thighs, trying to ignore that he was eye level with Steve’s crotch, and looked up at Steve. Steve was smiling down at him, soft, his hands moving to play with the strands of Bucky’s short hair. Bucky grinned, reached up to grab a fistful of the material of Steve’s absurd and absurdly hot suit – right under the star – and pulled Steve down until Steve’s mouth met his.

Bucky had kissed a fair few people in his time, both male and female, but those had been one-offs or short-term flings – lust – without the love that he felt for Steve. He’d never kissed an Android before Steve either, but that was here nor there, because Steve had been made to look and feel real. His lips were soft, his skin flawless where Bucky moved his hand to cup Steve’s jaw. Steve kissed him with full concentration, still learning (as he had done to draw with his new hands), how to kiss with his new lips.

To Bucky’s delight, Steve moved his legs either side of Bucky’s to straddle him, and Bucky had to move back to watch in awe as Steve’s suit shrunk as Steve’s body did – just slightly – so that they could more comfortably fit in the armchair, Steve’s form turning a little leaner under his hands.

“Jesus, Steve,” Bucky groaned before drawing Steve back in again, letting out a moan as Steve began to move his hips.

Bucky pushed up into him. Jesus, it felt good. Steve felt so good.

“You been with many people before, Stevie?” Bucky found himself asking, breathing against Steve’s lips.

“One or two, men and women,” Steve replied easily, “But that was a few years ago now, and not since I got this body. Just one night stands, nothing special.”

Bucky batted his eyelashes playfully, “And am I special, Steve?”

Steve’s eyes said yes, even as he teased, “We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?”

Bucky laughed, velvety and smooth, holding Steve’s hips still as he rolled his own up against him, “Doll, I am gunna rock your world.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Such confidence,” he said, a little breathless, “Put your money where your mouth is, jerk.”

“I love a challenge…”

And then came the knock on the door. “Barnes! Cap! We are off out for drinks, you in?”

“Fuck,” Bucky breathed.

The moment was broken. Steve leaned forward to press his lips to Bucky’s head.

“We had best go,” Steve murmured into Bucky’s temple, “It’ll look weird if we skip out.”

“Yeah but…” Bucky stopped, growled into Steve’s collarbone and then called back to Gabe, “Yeah Gabe! Me and Steve will be down in five; gotta choose something to wear.”

“Trust you,” Gabe laughed through the door. “Well hurry up, we got alcohol to consume.”

“Hey,” Steve said with a grin, ducking in to kiss Bucky firmly, “We can pick up where we left off later. Just be patient.”

“You looking like that, telling me to be patient…” Bucky grumbled, lifting himself out of the chair once Steve had vacated his lap. “Now I gotta choose what to wear with a distracting boner.”

“Nice,” Steve said.

“I try,” Bucky started pulling what few outfits he had with him out of his bag. “You gunna be wearing stars and stripes?”

“Not a fucking chance,” Steve responded merrily, literally peeling the thing off his body right in front of Bucky and doing nothing at all to help Bucky’s boner situation. Though Bucky could see he wasn’t the only one affected, which made him feel a bit better and a whole lot smugger.

***

Bucky had never considered himself a jealous guy. But maybe that was because he had had nobody to be truly jealous over before. Seeing Steve in that bar surrounded by women? Yeah, that was apparently something Bucky could get a little territorial over.

“It’s like a bad dream where I’m invisible,” Bucky joked to Steve when he managed to catch him alone; away from the Howlies and all the girls wanting to give Steve their number. He wasn’t surprised; Steve in grey chinos that hugged his ass and an even tighter maroon long-sleeve shirt that hugged his biceps and pecs was a damn good look. He looked like an all-American saint, compared to Bucky’s dark skinny jeans, grey shirt and leather jacket.

“Invisible? Yeah right,” Steve scoffed, “Don’t think I missed all those people eyeing you and offering to buy you drinks in the last couple of hours.”

Ok, so maybe Bucky wasn’t the only one getting a little territorial. Still, it was nice to know Steve only had eyes for him.

“If they found out I’m Android they would all take it back anyway,” Steve shrugged, pretending to swig his drink before subtly exchanging his glass for the empty one in Bucky’s hand. “They are just after the artificial face, and that’s only because they don’t know it’s not human.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a damn pretty artificial face, because it’s the exact copy of your human one.”

Steve did his if-he-could-blush head duck. “It’s not as skinny.”

“Even when it’s skinny,” Bucky countered lowly over the rim of his glass, so only Steve could hear him. “You think I don’t find tiny you a complete and utter turn on? Because I do. I most definitely do.”

Bucky could pinpoint the moment that sunk in with Steve, the way he froze. If he had had breath is his body it would have stilled, but his pupils dilated just like a human’s would.

“So,” Bucky grinned, leaning back against the bar, “You ready to jump ship early and go back to our room or?”

Steve’s fingers clenched like he wanted to grasp onto Bucky’s shirt and pull him straight out of the bar, and if it wouldn’t make a scene they didn’t need, Bucky would have been more than down with that. As it was, though, he did the rounds with the Howlies, pretending to be hammered, holding onto Steve, making slurred excuses that Steve was going to make sure he got back ok. They bought it. Bucky had always been a convincing liar.

“Can you feel me?” Bucky asked, half an hour later, dragging his fingertips down Steve’s naked torso.

“I can feel you,” Steve promised on a breath, watching Bucky like he was the only important thing in the entire world.

“You have receptors for touch woven into your skin,” Bucky murmured as though reading from a manual, brushing his lips down that skin, down Steve’s neck, across his shoulder and back along his collarbone. “So you can feel everything I can. You can function like any man can,” Bucky reached down to cup Steve’s hard cock through his chinos. “When it comes to sex.”

“You know, you make it sound way more interesting than when Howard first told me about it,” Steve said above him.

“I hope he didn’t explain it in this way.”

“Buck…” Steve let out a laugh, and Bucky felt a gentle push against his head, meant in jesting protest, but Bucky was never one to turn down such an opportunity.  

“You want me to get down, you only had to ask,” Bucky said sweetly, dropping to his knees.

“Jesus, Buck, that wasn’t what I…” he stopped as Bucky opened up his chinos and pushed them and his boxers down Steve’s beautifully thick thighs. “Actually, no, you carry on.”

Bucky chuckled lowly, glancing up at Steve from under his eyelashes to find Steve watching him, awestruck.

“You can feel me,” Bucky said again, curling his hand around the base of Steve’s cock and leaning forward to take the rest into his mouth, never breaking eye contact.

Steve threw his head back against the wall Bucky had backed him up against. “Fuck.”

Bucky had sucked men off before. He knew the texture and the weight on his tongue and how much he could take and how much his gag reflex could handle. It was amazing how Steve was textured so similar to human skin, but didn’t taste of anything but the strange pleasant tang of artificiality that betrayed him but was also unique to Steve in the way that anybody’s taste would be. He also knew that his preferences between spitting and swallowing didn’t even matter with Steve, because although he knew Steve could have a sensory overload – as close to an orgasm as a non-human could get – he wouldn’t produce anything for Bucky to have to deal with. Still, they could get messy in other ways.

He would have loved to have been in the room when Howard and Dr Erskine had had the conversation about how they had made Steve in a way that meant that he could experience sex like a human, considering his bisexuality and sexual preferences, and the decision to give Steve sensory receptors _everywhere_ , and as Bucky got his first lubed finger into Steve and Steve’s legs nearly buckled, he decided he needed to thank Howard somehow.

“Buck,” Steve groaned eventually. “Bed.”

Bucky let Steve slip from his lips. “Ok,” Bucky allowed, removing his finger carefully and letting Steve pull him shakily to his feet.

“And less clothes,” Steve decided.

“Sure thing, Captain.”

“Quick smart, Sergeant.”

Bucky laughed, stripping himself off in record time, but still noting Steve’s gaze fixed on him the whole time as he more distractedly stepped properly out of his chinos and boxers and toed off his socks.

Bucky waited with his hands on his hips, smirking cockily, until Steve rolled his eyes and charged him, tumbling them both to the mattress.

“You are too damn smug, Barnes,” Steve said, pressing a kiss to Bucky’s jaw, “But you look so damn hot doing it.”

Bucky laughed again. He couldn’t remember the last time someone made him laugh and smile like Steve did. Or make him shiver. Steve had decided it was his turn to focus on making Bucky feel, and had kissed his way down to Bucky’s nipples, dragging a slow tongue over one, before doing the same to the other, holding Bucky’s hips down when he arched up into it.

“There is one thing I can’t feel,” Steve commented, moving down to mouth at Bucky’s hipbone and the inside of his thigh, bending his leg gently to gain better access.

“Eh?” Bucky replied, with utmost eloquence.

It was Steve’s turn to smirk at him and god, Bucky hadn’t been prepared for that.

“I don’t have a gag reflex,” Steve told him casually, before swallowing Bucky down all the way. Bucky saw stars.

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky dragged the words out, gasping, arm flying over his head so that he could grasp the pillow under his head. “Stevie…”

Steve hummed and the vibrations were even more intense than if Steve had been human, his movements more deliberate and easy and Bucky was losing himself really fucking quickly.

“Stevie,” he managed, “M’gunna come if you aren’t careful.”

Steve shrugged his shoulders and didn’t let up.

“Carry on by all means, but I kinda wanted to fuck you and it might take a while for me to get it back up again after…”

His cock slipped from Steve’s lips pretty quickly. Bucky snickered and hauled Steve back up on top of him.

“So how do you want to do this?” Steve groaned against Bucky’s mouth, his thick thighs straddling Bucky’s lap as he pulled Bucky up to sitting by large guiding hands to the back of Bucky’s neck.

Bucky shuddered. “You gunna ride me, Stevie?” Bucky murmured, looking up at Steve through his eyelashes.

“If that’s what you want,” Steve shrugged with an aroused, dopey smile. “And how else do you want me to do this?” Steve asked. “Like this?” He gestured to himself before shrinking under Bucky’s hands to a much more petite size, his waist small under Bucky’s hands as he ended up at Bucky’s eye-level. “Or easier to manhandle?”

“Jesus, baby doll,” Bucky laughed, even as he hauled Steve’s smaller frame in closer. “I’ll have you every which way I can. In me, on me, under me…every size you got…”

Bucky froze, suddenly realising what he’d said, concerned that Steve would be upset, as an Android, to be referred to as a doll. But Steve was weird, and rather than get very offended by it, he apparently got very turned on by it instead. Steve groaned loudly, head thudding onto Bucky’s shoulder at Bucky’s words. “Say that again.”

“What?” Bucky asked with a purr, just to be sure, “Baby doll?”

Steve shuddered in his arms. “Yeah, that,” Steve clarified. He caught Bucky’s hand and guided it behind him, hinting at Bucky to hurry up and open him up already.

“You’re gunna be the death of me, Steve,” Bucky mouthed breathlessly into the shell of Steve’s ear.

Steve pulled back, expression a little serious as he watched Bucky carefully. “Yeah, well,” Steve said finally, with a small grin, swooping in for another kiss and keening as Bucky pushed in that first finger. “You’re gunna be taking me down with you.”

***

“You ready to follow CAPT-AI-N (America) into the jowls of death?” Steve asked, three months later, tugging Bucky backwards until their bodies met, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s middle, chin propped on his shoulder, as they both stared out of the window of their private accommodation room.

They were heading out on a mission the next day. They had had intel that a war-ending amount of explosives was being transported by train from one enemy base to another. It was the intention, presumably, to use the explosives on a civilian city, to cause as much pain and innocent deaths as possible; an act of terrorism that was going to send the war in a whole new, even more dangerous direction. It was the Commandos job to hijack the train and remove the explosives so that they could be destroyed in a controlled manner.

“Hell no,” Bucky smiled, turning his head to brush his lips over Steve’s cheekbone. “That little guy from Brooklyn that was too dumb not to run away from a fight. I’m following him.”

Bucky’s smiled against Steve’s lips when Steve turned his head to capture a brief kiss.

It had been a heady three months of highs and lows; the adrenaline and lows of fighting a seemingly never-ending war, the highs they found in the solace of each other, always keeping their love private, for the danger that a relationship between a man and machine would bring them. But it was definite, unbreakable, unconditional love. Developed by this point. Pure. Bucky trusted Steve like he trusted no-one else. Loved him like he loved no-one else.

“I’ve met someone,” he had confessed down the phone to his sister the last time she had called and asked him why he sounded so different – so happy.

“Oh yeah?” Becca had asked, sounding pleased for him, warm, “What’s their name?”

“Steve,” Bucky said, because although CAPT-AI-N (America) had been made known to the civilian world for propaganda purposes, they hadn’t released Steve’s real name; they hadn’t wanted anyone to know that a robot had its own identity other than its official brand title. (God forbid if anyone ever found out that it wasn’t just his own identity Steve possessed, but his own mind as well). Becca didn’t know CAPT-AI-N (America)’s real name, and ‘Steve’ was generic enough a name for Bucky to be truthful about it and yet not get himself into any kind of trouble.

“It sounds like you’re pretty into him. Never heard you say a boy’s name quite like that,” Becca had replied, voice hushed, like it was their secret.

“I am, Becs,” Bucky admitted. “I just…I love him. He’s the best person. The very best.”

“Good,” was all Becca had said, and Bucky had heard the smile in her voice, “I’m glad to hear he’s the best. Because only the very best is good enough for my big brother.”

“You still with me?” Steve asked, nosed buried in Bucky’s short hair.

“Always, Stevie,” Bucky promised, turning in Steve’s arms to draw him into a proper kiss, long and deep and wanting. “I’m always with you.”

The sex they had was always intense, passionate, like it could be their last chance, because you never knew, with war. That night was no different.

Bucky knew he was a lot of firsts for Steve, particularly with Steve’s new body. But Steve, in turn, was something new to Bucky, who had had a good number of lovers before the war. He wasn’t shy in saying that Steve was the best damn fuck he’d ever had.

“You sure you weren’t made for this, baby doll?” He moaned as Steve rolled his hips, bearing down on Bucky’s dick. They did this a lot; Steve riding him to completion, and then fucking him through a second orgasm not long after, Bucky’s thighs spread and hands clinging to the headboard or clutching at the pillow behind his head.

“Made for sex?” Steve laughed, breathless little hitches in his voice as he rode Bucky slowly, languidly. “I don’t know, you’ll have to bring it up with Stark.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Bucky snapped his hips, sharp, got Steve gasping properly.

Steve laughed again, bright and light and not like tomorrow could be their last, just like every time they did this when so many tomorrows could be their last.

“I don’t know if he made me for sex,” Steve said, throwing his head back and exposing his throat to Bucky’s hungry mouth, “Or if he made me for you.”

“Fuck,” Bucky choked, coming hard and unexpected.

“You like that, huh?” Steve asked, a little smug, climbing off Bucky as Bucky collapsed back onto the mattress. Steve removed the condom for him; no fluids – or as little fluids as possible – allowed in the Mecha.  “The idea of me being yours?”

Bucky watched him, chest rising and falling with rapid breaths as he calmed, eyes following Steve’s movements. Bucky nodded a little sheepishly. “Not ownership in an Android-sense,” he felt the need to clarify. “But yeah, I like the idea of you being mine.”

Steve smiled at him, dropped to lie over him and kiss him. “And that’s one of the many things that I love about you, James Barnes.”

“And what about you?” Bucky asked curiously, pushing himself up on his elbows, raising an eyebrow. “You like the idea of being mine?”

“More than an Android should probably admit,” Steve grinned at him.

Bucky frowned and abruptly rolled them, so that he was lying atop of Steve. “I just said it’s not about ownership.”

Steve just grinned wider. “I don’t mind the thought so much when it’s you. You own my heart.”

“Ah,” Bucky realised what Steve was getting at. By now, Bucky could read him like a book. “You like the idea of being only mine, just like you want me to tell you that I like the idea of being yours, too, don’t you, Stevie?”

Steve shrugged, but his eyes had that mischievous look to them that got Bucky feeling hot and bothered.

“Aww, sweetheart,” Bucky crooned, smoothing a hand down Steve’s thigh. “You know you got me.”

“I got you,” Steve agreed, unexpectedly flipping them again.

“You got me good,” Bucky grinned, slow and lazy, before Steve kissed it off his face. “Now are you gunna have me good?”

Steve’s smile heated as he reached for where they had abandoned the bottle of lube. “Anything you need, Buck,” he said brightly.

Bucky reached up to smooth his palm along Steve’s jaw, letting out a gasp as Steve began to oh so carefully finger him open. “That’s my baby doll,” he teased lightly, knowing he was going to get fucked good real soon. “That’s my Stevie.”

“Anything for you, Buck,” Steve promised.

Bucky knew Steve meant it, just like Bucky felt it right back. Anything for Steve Rogers. Anything at all. He’d lay down his damn life if he had to. Right into the jowls of death after that skinny kid from Brooklyn, if he had to.

***

They were standing on top of a mountain, about to make a crazy zip-lining descent onto the roof of a moving train. No big deal. Not the rest of the Commandos, who would be coming in at a later stage, just Steve and Bucky, for now, because Steve was Mecha and capable of such crazy feats. Bucky, as the Commandos engineer, and one of the army’s best, was going to make an early check on the mechanical explosives on board. And also because he was capable of the crazy feat of following Steve head first into crazy situations.

It also went unmentioned, but silently acknowledged amongst the Commandos, that Bucky was the most capable of the Commandos to take such challenging tasks. In the last few months Bucky’s aim had been flawless, his strength and focus improving. Everyone else had seen it as healing from torture and his hatred of Hydra fuelling him to improvement, a natural progress of being in the fight.

That could have been true, but Bucky could not help but wonder. Not that he had told anyone, or that they had truly noticed, but he had shocked himself a number of times with remarkable acts of strength on several occasions over the last few months; agility he’d never had before, his senses seemed heightened sometimes. He could not help but wonder about those injections during his torture at Hydra’s hands. Wonder what had been put in his system and if this was a side-effect. If Steve had wondered the same thing, he hadn’t mentioned it. So long as Bucky was healthy and whole, Steve seemed to be happy to ignore it, presumably for fear of facing an inevitable question of what it all meant. Bucky was much of the same inclination.

Besides, Bucky hadn’t really much to complain about. Enhanced senses and strength and stamina were no bad thing at all.

Unless maybe when that meant you were most qualified to jump off a mountain and zip-line onto a moving motherfucking train, that is.

Steve was standing beside him, looking as solemn as Bucky felt.

“Buck,” Steve said, “If anything goes wrong, anything at all…”

“Steve,” Bucky replied, “Don’t.”

“But you know the code. If it does.”

Two months ago, Steve had shown Bucky two very special codes; ones that didn’t even appear in the CAPT-AI-N (America) manual. The first was the Disabling Code, an overriding code to shut down and lock away the drive that Steve’s consciousness was stored on. Only four people on Earth knew it; Howard Stark, Peggy Carter, Steve and now, Bucky. It was intended as a fail-safe in case Steve was ever captured by Hydra; it would lock his mind away so that they couldn’t find the drive, even if they were to take him apart piece by piece, so that they couldn’t figure out what made Steve so remarkable from other Androids; what made him Mecha. It also meant that Steve’s consciousness would be shut down, put on pause, until the Restoring Code - the second special code - was entered. It meant that Steve could disassociate from torture, and basically become no more than any other Android, with no personality or free will. It was a terrifying idea and the fact that Bucky knew the Disabling and Restoring codes that could stop and restart Steve’s life was a power that he was scared to have. He was scared, because by knowing them, he might one day have to use them for Steve’s own good, and that hurt. It hurt a whole lot.

“I know it,” Bucky said, finally. “And if anything happens to me…”

“It won’t…”

“But if it does…”

“It won’t.”

Bucky laughed drily, choked a little on the cold wind and emotion, “It can’t be one rule for me and another for you,” he was watching the train track, so far below them. It would be a quick, steep descent on the zip-line. “You’re made of sturdier stuff than me, Stevie, you’re gunna outlive me eventually.”

Steve’s fingers caught the sleeve of his jacket. “Not for a long time yet. And the day that it does,” he shrugged. “Even I don’t want to live forever.”

“Don’t say that Stevie,” Bucky whispered harshly, knowing what Steve was implying; that he might shut himself down the day that Bucky one day died.

“Well,” Steve said, and when Bucky looked at him, he could see that stubborn set of Steve’s jaw. Steve was staring out to the distance as Bucky had been. “We’ll just have to make sure that we don’t have to deal with it for decades yet.”

Bucky let out a laugh that was much more genuine. “Yeah, Stevie.” He was going to have to have a discussion with Steve eventually about Steve’s apparent willingness to exist as a Mecha for only as long as Bucky was around, but at that moment they had bigger things to worry about. “Let’s make sure it’s not for decades yet.”

Steve finally met his eyes, giving him a soft smile.

“Barnes, Cap…” Dum-Dum’s voice came from behind them. “The train’s approaching. You both ready?”

“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Bucky replied for them both. “Let’s get this over with.”

And so they zip-lined onto the train. The landing and entry to the train was successful. Both Bucky and Steve were in soldier-mode; quick, efficient, only speaking when necessary, their emotions buried deep for now, their conversation left on the mountain top.

Things were going smoothly, until suddenly they weren’t. They had located the explosives – way more than had been predicted to be aboard - and Bucky prepared to check one, to make sure that they could be disabled and dismantled and weren't locked in by any specific code or scan-system that would cause problems later on. He carefully prised the panel off the bomb, revealing a mass of wires inside.

“That’s a lot of wires,” Steve muttered, gun up and ready for anything. “You got this?”

“When have I ever not got this?” Bucky smirked with confidence.

He glanced up at Steve to see him grinning back. “True,” Steve said, without an ounce of doubt.

But they had celebrated too soon. He had only just confirmed that they would be able to properly disable the bombs in a controlled environment, and told Steve that they could go ahead and hijack the train to get the rest of the Howlies in, before they were surrounded, outnumbered. They fought back to back, firing off shots, Steve’s shield was up, but their opponents were packing serious weaponry.

“Duck!” Steve yelled, pushing Bucky down and holding the shield over them as something large ricocheted off the shield and ripped a hole in the side of the carriage. The impact wrenched the shield from Steve’s hand and sent them both sprawling.

“Buck?!” Steve yelled, voice faulting in jolting robotic. Bucky glanced at him to make sure he was alright, and his eyes widened at the way that Steve’s shield-arm had been wrenched, the wires exposed at the shoulder. Bucky spent a second to worry that Steve might lose his arm if the joints and mechanisms couldn’t be mended, before he forced himself back into the action again.

“I’ve got it,” Buck said through gritted teeth, his eyes landing on the shield, lying closer to him than to Steve. He dragged himself forwards and snatched it up, leaping to his feet with Steve’s shield up, his gun trained at their enemy over the top of it. A second before another rocket hit the shield and sent him hurtling backwards.

One second he was in the train, and the next second in was in mid-air. He’d been thrown through the hole in the side of the carriage, and the only thing keeping him alive was his hold on a flimsy metal bar hanging off the side of the train. Below him was a drop so high he didn’t dare look down.

“Fuck,” Bucky hissed, his heart frozen with the horrifying fear of it, as he watched the piece of metal in his hands bend a little further.

“Bucky!” There was utter terror in Steve’s voice as the Mecha appeared in the hole in the carriage, swinging himself out of the carriage immediately to clutch onto the railing along the side of it, climbing his way along the carriage. Bucky wanted to yell at him to not be so stupid, but his voice was frozen in his throat. “Hold on!” Steve yelled, before throwing an arm out towards Bucky. And aside from Steve’s absolute recklessness, the only other problems were that Steve’s reach was still too short to breach the distance, and the arm that kept Steve attached to the train as he reached for Bucky was the one that had been wrenched, with exposed mechanism, which was short-circuiting before Bucky’s eyes. “Grab my hand!” Steve cried out.

The metal bar was cutting into Bucky’s hand and it ripped away from the carriage a little more. It was now or never. He flung out his arm, his fingers brushing Steve’s but too far to catch. The metal bar gave another sickening screech as it started to come away.

“No!” Steve yelled.

And Bucky managed a choked noise of shock that he wished could have been an apology, before the bar came away and he was falling.

He was screaming.

And falling.

And falling.

And screaming.

And then he wasn’t. Because soon he was nothing.

Because he hit the ground and everything went black.


	4. Chapter 4

It happened in flashes. Flashes of white, flashes of snow and blurred memory. Flashes of pain. So much pain. A flash of the missing space where his arm had been, red splashed all over the white snow beside him. Movement, faces, the feeling of being dragged through the snow.

Frozen from the cold. Flashes of pain. And Bucky left a red trail behind him. And then he forgot.

He was on a cold metal table surrounded by Hydra. He had sworn he would never be back there again. He was in and out of consciousness but he remembered Zola’s face. Indescribable pain as they did indescribable things to his body. His arm became strong and he lashed out. He remembered the first time he caused real destruction and the fear on their faces. And then, then there had been blessed silence, because they knocked him out and then he woke up and they had done something to his head.

His hair was shorn off and it hurt with a constant banging thumping, like being hit with a mallet. So he hit out at them with his new metal arm so they could know how it felt.

They put his head in a vice and his skull was splitting. They said a few words and the world went blissfully quiet for a while. Something in his brain switched and he could see better, he could hear better, his focus changed.

Longing. Rusted. Furnace. Daybreak. Seventeen. Benign. Nine. Homecoming. One. Freight Car.

And he did every single thing they wanted him to. He did not hit out at them anymore with his new metal arm.

He remembered. Flashes of pain. How long had he suffered for? Where was Steve? Bucky left a red trail of tears behind him. And then he forgot. Because they put his head in a vice and said some words and then he was frozen.

He was unfrozen. He remembered. How long had he been frozen for? Why hadn’t Steve come for him? They put his head in a vice and said some words. Flashes of pain and then he forgot. Bucky left a red trail behind him. Names they gave him. And then he was frozen again.

He was unfrozen. He remembered. How long had he been asleep? What if Steve was gone? They put his head in a vice and said some words. Flashes of pain and then he forgot. Bucky left a red trail behind him. Names they gave him. And then he was frozen again.

He was unfrozen. He did not remember. How long…who was he? Who was Steve? This Steve they asked him about? He couldn’t answer. He had forgotten. Still, they put his head in a vice and said some words. Flashes of pain. His body left a red trail behind it. A dead trail of names they gave him. And then he was frozen again.

He was unfrozen. He did not remember. Years had passed. There was a name, something important, something he had forgotten. They put his head in a vice and said some words. Flashes of pain. The Soldat left a red trail behind him. Names they gave him.

And a name they had given him, too. The Winter Cyborg.

Longing. Rusted. Furnace. Daybreak. Seventeen. Benign. Nine. Homecoming. One. Freight Car.

For decades The Winter Cyborg went in and out of cryo. Hydra’s assassin. Their own personal Soldat. The Cyborg of their making.

Years and years and years.

Longing. Rusted. Furnace. Daybreak. Seventeen. Benign. Nine. Homecoming. One. Freight Car.

There was a moment, on a mission - December 16 - where the Soldat stood beside a car he had run off the road on his bike, and the man that had been driving the car, a flicker of familiarity, asked “Sergeant Barnes?”

The Soldat did not know who Sergeant Barnes was. Or, after a second of doubt, who that man was.

The Soldat left that man in the red trail. There had been a flash of pain and grief that he didn’t quite understand, but then they put his head in a vice and he forgot again.

Longing. Rusted. Furnace. Daybreak. Seventeen. Benign. Nine. Homecoming. One. Freight Car.

He trained in a red room to teach others how to leave a red trail. Cyborgs and androids and machines.

The next time the Soldat awakened it was to a new batch of Hydra faces in a brand new decade. A brand new century. The Soldat did not care about that, just took what information he was told. Waited for the words. Waited for the mission. A trail of red and a flash of pain.

“I am Alexander Pierce,” a man told the Soldat. “I am your new commander. This is Rumlow. He is your new handler. Understand?”

“Ready to comply,” said the Soldat. He’d just had his head in the vice. Heard some words.

The Soldat left his red trail. But then a new mission arose.

“I have been authorised to take a unit to some abandoned bases in the mountains,” his handler, Rumlow, said. “You are to come with us, Soldat.”

The bases had never been checked before because Hydra files claimed them to have been totally emptied, Rumlow said, but now there was interest in that there could be old tech there. Old technology from the Great Technology War. Tech that got abandoned by Zola when the war was lost.

They found three abandoned bases and took the equipment, the technology. The Soldat felt like he knew one of them, from a long time ago.

They entered the fourth base to find it equally abandoned. Rumlow sent the Soldat ahead and he stalked into each room without care or caution. It did not matter anyway. It was empty. He descended the steps into the basement, gun raised.

He stopped.

There was someone there.

He approached slowly but the figure did not move.

Their eyes were open.

They were dead. Sitting on the stone ground, in the corner of the room propped up against wall, head tilted back.

No. They weren’t dead. They were Mecha. A shut-down Mecha.

A Mecha left with its eyes open. Hair crusted with icicles, artificial skin crisp and patterned with cold. Dust had settled. Decades had passed. Blue eyes staring, unseeing.

But the Soldat saw.

The Soldat saw Steve.

It was a haze. The Soldat did not understand the grief, did not quite understand who ‘Steve’ was. But something else in the Soldat did.

“Oh my god,” The Soldat’s voice cracked with the wear of gruff misuse and long silence. The Soldat lost control of his legs and fell to his knees. “Oh my god, Steve.”

He was crying. The Soldat had not cried for anything but pain for as long as he could remember. The haze continued to descend as he crawled over to the body before him, the Mecha's open, sightless eyes.

“Oh god Stevie,” The Soldat sobbed into the man’s cold chest, pawed at his face, grasped bunches of the uniform in his hands even though it was stiff and crunching with the freeze, his head screaming with contradictions of remembering and forgetting. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry...”

“What the fuck?” The Soldat froze at Rumlow’s voice.

“How is this even possible?” The Soldat heard another of the team ask. “He’s been conditioned – the perfect soldier – for decades.”

“Because,” Rumlow said, and he sounded excited. “I think we have just stumbled on a legend.”

There was a long pause.

 “Boss, the CAPT-AI-N (America) Mecha was destroyed in the train crash…”

“Well clearly it wasn’t. Look at the uniform.” There was another pause. Rumlow moved across the room but the Soldat stayed. Steve was cold. The Soldat was cold. Bucky…wait... Who the hell was Bucky? Rumlow snatched something off a nearby bench. “Look at this! It’s a file for CAPT-AI-N (Hydra)!” He began to read snatches, flicking through pages, coming to conclusions The Soldat did not follow. “Looks like it wasn’t destroyed and was picked up by us. They tried to get it to turn. Make it CAPT-AI-N (Hydra), but there was something wrong with it.” A pause as he read. “The trauma had caused it to turn into any other android; docile and useless and nothing like it had been for the US forces.” He pulled out pages. “Look at these diagrams. After that leak when the war was over and it all came out about the CAPT-AI-N actually having a real human mind on a chip, they looked all over the fucking thing and practically took it apart as much as they could. They knew how the CAPT-AI-N was sentient; how it was made Mecha by it rather than Android and even then they mustn’t have been able to figure it out. I guess Erskine really did take the secret with him to the grave. Stark never recreated the CAPT-AI-N model, claimed he wouldn’t be able to without Erskine and no-one ever achieved it again. The CAPT-AI-N was a one-off miracle. So that will have been the point Hydra officially declared they never found the CAPT-AI-N model. Said it had been destroyed in the train crash, as everyone thought. Zola probably didn’t want the embarrassment of not being able to make the Mecha even function, let alone use it properly. They then were forced to leave and so they just abandoned it. And I guess we know now why the Soldat’s acting out. This is the first time Barnes has seen his Mecha since he fell off the train.”

“And that’s strong enough to break decades of conditioning?”

“You’ve read the history books. Figure it out.” Rumlow sounded gleeful. “Oh we’re taking this back to the states with us. Pierce won’t believe it. I can’t quite believe it!” And then his voice turned harsh, authoritative. “Soldat.”

The Soldat had not understood the story Rumlow had been telling, but it still clung to the body before it even harder.

“Soldat! Away!” Rumlow ordered.

The Soldat disobeyed.

The Soldat never disobeyed.

In the end they dragged the Soldat away, kicking and screaming though he wasn’t quite sure why.

So they put his head in a vice and said some words.

Longing. Rusted. Furnace. Daybreak. Seventeen. Benign. Nine. Homecoming. One. Freight Car.

Flashes of pain and then he forgot.

The Soldat travelled all over the world, left a red trail. He remembered at the time and then he forgot. Serbia. Russia. Germany. Egypt. Iran. In Odessa the Soldat shot at an Android with red hair. He remembered red hair, in a red room, and the red trail. And then they put his head in a vice and said the words and he forgot again. Then they froze him again.

The next time he woke it was several years later and a new decade. He remembered Rumlow and Pierce. Practically everything else was wiped again. Rumlow was a little older and so was Pierce.

The Soldat was awake for several months. He performed his missions perfectly.

“We’re going out to celebrate,” Rumlow said to the Soldat. “Me and the team. You’re coming with us as protection. Plus I have a test for you. Come on.”

The Soldat had accompanied Rumlow’s team to Android brothels several times during his months awake so he knew the mission. He knew the routine. Even though this particular brothel was new to him.

“This brothel has some of my favourite Androids,” Rumlow told him, like the Soldat would reply. “I’ve been coming here for years now. There’s one in particular that’s just perfection. He can be any size, any shape, any look you fancy. And he is very, very good. They call him the Captain. Or Captain America.” Rumlow was watching him. “Do you like the sound of Captain America, Soldat?”

The Soldat did not understand so remained blank.

“Of course you don’t,” Rumlow agreed. “You’re just a cyborg, right?”

The Soldat’s arm whirred as the plates moved, as if in agreement.

“Right, well, we’ll see if we can’t introduce the two of you at some point," Rumlow said, and he was smiling like it was supposed to be funny. "See if you might have a reaction to him then. He is quite impressive.”

The Soldat did not understand. But he carried on with the mission. Protecting Rumlow and the team.

After his last unfreezing and before the  latest mission the Soldat had been briefed on the current robot situation; as he had been, he could only assume, every time he was woken up. Androids had been made or adapted as soldiers for the Great Technology War in huge numbers. The very first Mecha had been made and used by the US Army. The end of the Great Technology War saw huge numbers of displaced ex-soldier Androids, all eventually destroyed or put into servitude. But the creation of the first sentient Mecha had launched the MechAndroid race, as countries had raced to create their own extraordinary androids and robots. They had had too many, but still they made more. Eccentric independent companies emerged, like Asgard, Xandar, Terra and Jotunheim, that started experimenting, making wackier models with strange functions or alien colours and attachments, and even animals.

Metal limb replacements became more popular or in demand, so more enhanced humans and Cyborgs started to appear. Enhanced humans were humans with robotic attachments rather than false ones, and Cyborgs, like the Soldat, were humans who were considered to have significant enough artificiality; one or more artificial parts, to be considered as much robot as human. An inventor named Howard Stark then created the first truly artificial organ which had eventually launched the businesses that made and sold and implanted artificial organs, headed by the _Stark & Stane AO Company_. So that made more enhanced humans and Cyborgs. The Mecha companies continued to expand and Mecha were getting more sentient, more human in mannerisms.

And then, decades later, the humans of the world suddenly realised that they only outnumbered the amount of Androids, Mecha, robots and Cyborgs in the world by two to one. And that was when they truly turned against them. More and more Androids were currently being destroyed. Cyborgs were still technically human, but were often looked down on or were deemed different. Enhanced humans struggled to pay back extortionate debts caused by the businesses that made and sold artificial organs and limbs. Mecha were more popular as slaves, due to their empathetic nature. They were also popular in places like brothels. They weren’t human, so it wasn’t deemed as cheating. They were mostly created to be incredibly attractive. They had unrivalled stamina when fully charged. Mecha could imitate feelings, too. And then there were the Androids for those that wanted no real feelings involved at all.

Many humans were disgusted by those that used android brothels. Many of those that did go to them were in denial and did so in secret. And then there were a small number of people who fought for the rights of the Mecha and Androids, even for the ones that _had_ been made specifically to be prostitutes.

When the Soldat, Rumlow and Rumlow’s team approached the brothel there was a small Mecha Rights group standing across the street from the brothel holding signs that stated slogans such as; _They were created to follow orders, so_ _they cannot consent_ and  _They can't make their own choices_ and  _Mecha weren’t made for this!_

The Soldat caught the eyes of an old man with a moustache and dark glasses who was holding a sign that stated _I did not create them for this world_. The old man nodded at him in some strange acknowledgment as the Soldat turned away, leading Rumlow and the others into the brothel, ignoring the shouts of the protesters.

The front room of the brothel was dimly lit. There was a huge variety of Androids and Mecha and Cyborgs wandering around, or accompanying human men and women.

Rumlow ignored them and spoke to one of the waiting staff. Apparently Rumlow's favourite prostitute, The Captain, was busy with another client so Rumlow disappeared with an Android with purple artificial skin. The other members of the team left with other sex-bots, ordering the Soldat to wait by Rumlow’s door. So the Soldat did.

“Hel-lo.”

The Soldat looked down at a very small and skinny man. No. Not man. Android or Mecha. He was too beautiful. Voice false, eyes emotionless. He looked like a Mecha but sounded and acted like an Android.

The Soldat did not reply.

The Android seemed to scan him with its blue eyes. “Are. You. Here. With. Mr. Rum-low?” The Android asked, voice stilted and robotic.

The Soldat nodded once. Sharply.

“Do. You. Want. Me. To. Keep. You. Ent-er-tained?” The Android asked, acting coy, but it's words were blunt in the way that old fashioned robots could be.

The Soldat shook his head. Sharply.

But something – something – a flash; a flash of recognition, had the Soldat wanting to keep the Android with him.

“Are you The Captain?” he asked, voice rough with prolonged silence.

“Yes,” the Android replied. “Who. Are. You?”

“A Soldat.”

The Android nodded.

“You do not need to entertain me,” the Soldat said.

“But. We. Could. Talk?” The Android offered. He probably offered everybody that seemed nervous in the brothel that option. The Soldat hated talking. But he felt like he could talk to the Captain. He needed to understand. The Android seemed wrong. He wasn’t right. The Soldat had dealt with and trained Androids and machines over the years, so he knew them. And he knew that there was something wrong with this one. And not just that the odd familiarity of his face was tugging at something painful in the Soldat’s head.

So the Soldat nodded.

The Android held out a thin long-fingered hand and against every instinct the Soldat reached out and took it with the hand that was still flesh.

The Android led the Soldat into a private room. The Soldat tried not to be alarmed and lash out with his arm or his gun as the Android suddenly grew in inches and muscle mass to gently push the Soldat to sit on the edge of the bed. Another flash of recognition at the face that was less skinny, more familiar.

“What. Would. You. Like. To. Talk. A-bout?” The Captain asked, kneeling between the Soldat’s legs with far more grace than his robotic voice.

“How you’re wrong,” the Soldat said without thinking, before frowning at his own response.

“I. Am. Wrong?” the Android sent him a perfected, artificial smile. “Ma-ny. Pe-ople. Say. That. The. First. Time. They. Come. Here. They. Try. To. Re-mind. Them-selves. An-droids. Are. Wrong. But. They. Come. Here. An-y-way. Be-cause. They. Want. Us.” The Android’s now-larger hands smoothed up the Soldat’s strong thighs. “Cur-i-os-i-ty.”

The Soldat shook his head and then before he knew what he was doing, he had reached out and grasped onto the Android’s head.

“No. You’re wrong. You’re broken,” the Soldat said. He did not know how he knew. He just knew. How had this Android brothel had this Android having sex with its clients for years without realising that it was obviously broken? This Android was partially shut-down; disabled. He did not know how he knew. He just did. “You need fixing.”

Disabling code. There was a Disabling code in place.

“Sir. I. Can. Ass-ure. You. I. Am. Not…” the Android stopped when the Soldat prodded his fingers against the side of its head.

“Ugh,” the Android said and froze as its mechanisms halted. Its golden blond hair shrunk into its skull as a blue panel of numbers lit up just above its ear.

The Soldat stared at his own fingers as they typed in a long, complex series of numbers. Restoring code. The Android’s chest panel opened, easy to do when the Android was wearing hot pants and no shirt. The Soldat pulled the chest panel open further and made several instinctual adjustments. He shut the panel, typed in some more numbers.

And then the Soldat stopped.

The Android jerked. There was a faint whirring sound. The Android jerked again, violently. Its eyes glazed. And then, then they cleared. They came to life.

The Soldat had never seen an Android look so alive before.

The Android blinked, looking dazed. And then, then its gaze latched onto the Soldat.

The Android frowned, forehead wrinkling, mouth falling open, more expressive than it had been since the moment it had come up to the Soldat at Rumlow’s door.

And then the scariest thing of all. Those suddenly life-filled eyes widened in recognition. With relief, shock, horror, confusion. And something else.

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then;

“Bucky?” The Captain asked, voice soft and shell-shocked.

The Soldat had been frozen, made to forget, head in a vice, flashes of pain, words said, made a red trail, made to forget. Flashes of pain. And now, now more flashes of recognition. But recognition only for the face before him, the voice, the code to bring back the real Captain, a name that was on the tip of his tongue…a name that sure as hell wasn’t ‘Bucky’, whatever that was.

So the Winter Cyborg could only frown in confusion and ask the Captain “Who the hell is Bucky?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sincerely apologise for the delayed update for the final chapter but here it is! I hope you enjoyed it! (And enjoyed the Stan Lee cameo - RIP you legend). Also AVENGERS: ENDGAME YOU GUYS!!! I'm so, so excited.
> 
> I know this story ends with a bit of a cliffhanger but this story will be continued in my Marvel Mecha Universe series, which will include MechAvengers Assemble, The Winter Cyborg, The Ultra Anti-Mecha Age and The Infinite Civilian War. I'll be introducing all the other characters and giving them their own Marvel Mecha Universe backstory, and I'll be making sure Bucky and Steve are ENDGAME, so if you're interested be sure to give the series a follow. I'll be writing/updating when I can.


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